DT 652 
.D8 
Copy 1 









*sA 



eCrim 

he Conso 



By 

A.ConanDoyle 



"V 





Class T) Tfi 5 2 

Bo*__JLS__ 



Gofpight^ . 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



i 



THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 



The 

Crime of the Congo 



By 

A. Conan Doyle 

Author of 

The Great Boer War, etc., etc. 




New York 

Doubleday, Page & Company 

Mcmix 



y 



$>.* 



<& 

^ 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION 
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN 

COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
PUBLISHED, NOVEMBER, 1909 
COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY A. CONAN DOYLE 



'GU2515! 



PREFACE 

There are many of us in England who consider the crime which 
has been wrought in the Congo lands by King Leopold of Belgium 
and his followers to be the greatest which has ever been known 
in human annals. Personally I am strongly of that opinion. 
There have been great expropriations like that of the Normans 
in England or of the English in Ireland. There have been 
massacres of populations like that of the South Americans by the 
Spaniards or of subject nations by the Turks. But never before 
has there been such a mixture of wholesale expropriation and 
wholesale massacre all done under an odious guise of philanthropy 
and with the lowest commercial motives as a reason. It is this 
sordid cause and the unctious hypocrisy which makes this crime 
unparalleled in its horror. 

The witnesses of the crime are of all nations, and there is no possi- 
bility of error concerning facts. There are British consuls like 
Casement, Thesiger, Mitchell and Armstrong, all writing in their 
official capacity with every detail of fact and date. There are French- 
men like Pierre Mille and Felicien Challaye, both of whom have 
written books upon the subject. There are missionaries of many 
races — Harris, Weeks and Stannard (British); Morrison, Clarke 
and Shepherd (American); Sjoblom (Swedish) and Father Ver- 
meersch, the Jesuit. There is the eloquent action of the Italian 
Government, who refused to allow Italian officers to be employed 
any longer in such hangman's work, and there is the report of the 
Belgian commission, the evidence before which was suppressed 
because it was too dreadful for publication; finally, there is the incor- 
ruptible evidence of the kodak. Any American citizen who will 
glance at Mark Twain's "King Leopold's Soliloquy" will see some 
samples of that. A perusal of all of these sources of information 
will show that there is not a grotesque, obscene or ferocious torture 
which human ingenuity could invent which has not been used against 
these harmless and helpless people. 

This would, to my mind, warrant our intervention in any case. 

iii 



iv PREFACE 

Turkey has several times been interfered with simply on the general 
ground of humanity. There is in this instance a very special 
reason why America and England should not stand by and see 
these people done to death. They are, in a sense, their wards. 
America was the first to give official recognition to King Leopold's 
enterprise in 1884, and so has the responsibility of having actually 
put him into that position which he has so dreadfully abused. 
She has been the indirect and innocent cause of the whole tragedy. 
Surely some reparation is due. On the other hand England 
has, with the other European Powers, signed the treaty of 1885, 
by which each and all of them make it responsible for the 
condition of the native races. The other Powers have so far 
shown no desire to live up to this pledge. But the conscience 
of England is uneasy and she is slowly rousing herself to act. 
Will America be behind? 

At this moment two American citizens, Shepherd and that noble 
Virginian, Morrison, are about to be tried at Boma for telling the 
truth about the scoundrels. Morrison in the dock makes a finer 
Statue of Liberty than Bartholdi's in New York harbour. 

Attempts will be made in America (for the Congo has its paid 
apologists everywhere) to pretend that England wants to oust Belgium 
from her colony and take it herself. Such accusations are folly. 
To run a tropical colony honestly without enslaving the natives is 
an expensive process. For example Nigeria, the nearest English 
colony, has to be subsidized to the extent of $2,000,000 a year. Who- 
ever takes over the Congo will, considering its present demoralized 
condition, have a certain expense of $10,000,000 a year for twenty 
years. Belgium has not run the colony. It has simply sacked it, 
forcing the inhabitants without pay to ship everything of value to 
Antwerp. No decent European Power could do this. For many 
years to come the Congo will be a heavy expense and it will truly 
be a philanthropic call upon the next owner. I trust it will not fall 
to England. 

Attempts have been made too (for there is considerable ingenuity 
and unlimited money on the other side) to pretend that it is a question 
of Protestant missions against Catholic. Any one who thinks this 
should read the book, " La Question Kongolaise," of the eloquent and 
holy Jesuit, Father Vermeersch. He lived in the country and, as he 
says, it was the sight of the "immeasurable misery," which drove him 
to write. 



PREFACE v 

We English who are earnest over this matter look eagerly 
to the westward to see some sign of moral support of material 
leading. It would be a grand sight to see the banner of humanity 
and civilization carried forward in such a cause by the two great 
English-speaking nations. 

Arthur Conan Doyle. 



INTRODUCTION 

I am convinced that the reason why public opinion has not been 
more sensitive upon the question of the Congo Free State, is that 
the terrible story has not been brought thoroughly home to the people. 
Mr. E. D. Morel has done the work of ten men, and the Congo 
Reform Association has struggled hard with very scanty means; 
but their time and energies have, for the most part, been absorbed in 
dealing with each fresh phase of the situation as it arose. There 
is room, therefore, as it seemed to me, for a general account which 
would cover the whole field and bring the matter up to date. This 
account must necessarily be a superficial one, if it is to be produced 
at such a size and such a price, as will ensure its getting at that general 
public for which it has been prepared. Yet it contains the essential 
facts, and will enable the reader to form his own opinion upon the 
situation. 

Should he, after reading it, desire to help in the work of forcing 
this question to the front, he can do so in several ways. He can 
join the Congo Reform Association (Granville House, Arundel 
Street, W. C.) . He can write to his local member and aid in getting 
up local meetings to ventilate the question. Finally, he can pass 
this book on and purchase other copies, for any profits will be used 
in setting the facts before the French and German public. 

It may be objected that this is ancient history, and that the greater 
part of it refers to a period before the Congo State was annexed to 
Belgium on August ioth, 1908. But responsibility cannot be so 
easily shaken off. The Congo State was founded by the Belgian King, 
and exploited by Belgian capital, Belgian soldiers and Belgian con- 
cessionnaires. It was defended and upheld by successive Belgian 
Governments, who did all they could to discourage the Reformers. 
In spite of legal quibbles, it is an insult to common sense to suppose 
that the responsibility for the Congo has not always rested with 
Belgium. The Belgian machinery was always ready to help and 
defend the State, but never to hold it in control and restrain it 
from crime. 

vii 



viii INTRODUCTION 

One chance Belgium had. If immediately upon taking over the 
State they had formed a Judicial Commission for the rigid inspection 
of the whole matter, with power to punish for all past offences, 
and to examine all the scandals of recent years, then they would 
have done something to clear the past. If on the top of that they 
had freed the land, given up the system of forced labour entirely, 
and cancelled the charters of all the concessionnaire companies, 
for the obvious reason that they have notoriously abused their powers, 
then Belgium could go forward in its colonizing enterprise on the 
same terms as other States, with her sins expiated so far as expiation 
is now possible. 

She did none of these things. For a year now she has herself 
persevered in the evil ways of her predecessor. Her colony is a 
scandal before the whole world. The era of murders and mutilations 
has, as we hope, passed by, but the country is sunk into a state of 
cowed and hopeless slavery. It is not a new story, but merely another 
stage of the same story. When Belgium took over the Congo State, 
she took over its history and its responsibilities also. What a load 
that was is indicated in these pages. 

The record of the dates is the measure of our patience. Can 
any one say that we are precipitate if we now brush aside vain words 
and say definitely that the matter has to be set right by a certain near 
date, or that we will appeal to each and all of the Powers, with the 
evidence before them, to assist us in setting it right ? If the Powers 
refuse to do so, then it is our duty to honour the guarantees which we 
made as to the safety of these poor people, and to turn to the task 
of setting it right ourselves. If the Powers join in, or give us a man- 
date, all the better. But we have a mandate from something higher 
than the Powers which obliges us to act. 

Sir Edward Grey has told us in his speech of July 22nd, 1909, 
that a danger to European peace lies in the matter. Let us look 
this danger squarely in the face. Whence does it come ? Is it from 
Germany, with her traditions of kindly home life — is this the 
power which would raise a hand to help the butchers of the Mongalla 
and of the Domaine de la Couronne? Is it likely that those who 
so justly admire the splendid private and public example of William 
II. would draw the sword for Leopold ? Both in the name of trade 
rights and in that of humanity Germany has a long score to settle 
on the Congo. Or is it the United States which would stand in the 
way, when her citizens have vied with our own in withstanding and 



INTRODUCTION ix 

exposing these iniquities ? Or, lastly, is France the danger ? There 
are those who think that because France has capital invested in these 
enterprises, because the French Congo has itself degenerated under 
the influence and example of its neighbour, and because France holds 
a right of pre-emption, that therefore our trouble lies across the 
Channel. For my own part, I cannot believe it. I know too well the 
generous, chivalrous instincts of the French people. I know, also, 
that their colonial record during centuries has been hardly inferior 
to our own. Such traditions are not lightly set aside, and all will 
soon be right again when a strong Colonial Minister turns his atten- 
tion to the concessionnaires in the French Congo. They will remem- 
ber de Brazza's dying words: "Our Congo must not be turned into 
a Mongalla." It is an impossibility that France could ally herself 
with King Leopold, and certainly if such were, indeed, the case, the 
entente cordiale would be strained to breaking. Surely, then, if these 
three Powers, the ones most directly involved, have such obvious 
reasons for helping, rather than hindering, we may go forward 
without fear. But if it were not so, if all Europe frowned upon 
our enterprise, we would not be worthy to be the sons of our fathers 
if we did not go forward on the plain path of national duty. 

Arthur Con an Doyle. 
Windlesham, Crowborough, 
September, 1909. 



CONTENTS 



Preface •••••• 

Introduction ...... 

How the Congo Free State Came to be Founded 

The Development of the Congo State 

The Working of the System 

First Fruits of the System 

Further Fruits of the System 

Voices from the Darkness 

Consul Roger Casement's Report 

King Leopold's Commission and Its Report 

The Congo After the Commission 

Some Catholic Testimony as to the Congo . 

The Evidence Up to Date . 

The Political Situation 

Some Congolese Apologies 

Solutions 

Appendix 



PAGE 

iii 
vii 

3 
9 

22 

27 

39 
46 

57 
68 

87 

97 
102 

114 

118 

123 

127 



THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 



The Crime of the Congo 



HOW THE CON€0 FREE STATE CAME TO BE FOUNDED 

N THE earlier years of his reign King Leopold of Belgium 
began to display that interest in Central Africa which for a 
long time was ascribed to nobility and philanthropy, until 
the contrast between such motives, and the actual unscrupulous 
commercialism, became too glaring to be sustained. As far back as 
the year 1876 he called a conference of humanitarians and travellers, 
who met at Brussels for the purpose of debating various plans by 
which the Dark Continent might be opened up. From this con- 
ference sprang the so-called International African Association, 
which, in spite of its name, was almost entirely a Belgian body, 
with the Belgian King as President. Its professed object was the 
exploration of the country and the founding of stations which should 
be rest-houses for travellers and centres of civilization. 

On the return of Stanley from his great journey in 1878, he was 
met at Marseilles by a representative from the King of Belgium, who 
enrolled the famous traveller as an agent for his Association. The 
immediate task given to Stanley was to open up the Congo for trade, 
and to make such terms with the natives as would enable stations 
to be built and depots established. In 1879 Stanley was at work 
with characteristic energy. His own intentions were admirable. 
" We shall require but mere contact," he wrote, " to satisfy the natives 
that our intentions are pure and honourable, seeking their own good, 
materially and socially, more than our own interests. We go to 
spread what blessings arise from amiable and just intercourse with 
people who have been strangers to them. ,, Stanley was a hard 
man, but he was no hypocrite. What he said he undoubtedly meant. 
It is worth remarking, in view of the accounts of the laziness or 
stupidity of the natives given by King Leopold's apologists in order 

3 



4 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

to justify their conduct toward them, that Stanley had the very 
highest opinion of their industry and commercial ability. The 
following extracts from his writings set this matter beyond all doubt: 

"Bolobo is a great centre for the ivory and camwood powder 
trade, principally because its people are so enterprising." 

Of Irebu — "a Venice of the Congo" — he says: 

"These people were really acquainted with many lands and tribes 
on the Upper Congo. From Stanley Pool to Upoto, a distance of 
6,000 miles, they knew every landing-place on the river banks. All 
the ups and downs of savage life, all the profits and losses derived 
from barter, all the diplomatic arts used by tactful savages, were 
as well known to them as the Roman alphabet to us. . . . No 
wonder that all this commercial knowledge had left its traces on their 
faces; indeed, it is the same as in your own cities in Europe. Know 
you not the military man among you, the lawyer and the merchant, 
the banker, the artist, or the poet? It is the same in Africa, more 

ESPECIALLY ON THE CONGO, WHERE THE PEOPLE ARE SO DEVOTED 
TO TRADE." 

"During the few days of our mutual intercourse they gave us 
a high idea of their qualities — industry, after their own style, not 
being the least conspicuous." 

"As in the old time, Umangi, from the right bank, and Mpa, from 
the left bank, despatched their representatives with ivory tusks, 
large and small, goats and sheep, and vegetable food, clamorously 
demanding that we should buy from them. Such urgent entreaties, 
accompanied with blandishments to purchase their stock, were 
difficult to resist." 

"I speak of eager native traders following us for miles for the 
smallest piece of cloth. I mention that after travelling many miles 
to obtain cloth for ivory and redwood powder, the despairing natives 
asked: 'Well, what is it you do want? Tell us, and we will get it 
for you.' " 

Speaking of English scepticism as to King Leopold's intentions, 
he says: 

"Though they understand the satisfaction of a sentiment when 
applied to England, they are slow to understand that it may be a 



HOW CONGO FREE STATE CAME TO BE FOUNDED 5 

sentiment that induced King Leopold II. to father this International 
Association. He is a dreamer, like his confreres in the work, because 
the sentiment is applied to the neglected millions of the Dark 
Continent. They cannot appreciate rightly, because there are no 
dividends attaching to it, this ardent, vivifying and expansive senti- 
ment, which seeks to extend civilizing influences among the dark 
races, and to brighten up with the glow of civilization the dark 
places of sad-browed Africa.' ' 

One cannot let these extracts pass without noting that Bolobo, 
the first place named by Stanley, has sunk in population from 40,000 
to 7,000; that Irebu, called by Stanley the populous Venice of the 
Congo, had in 1903 a population of fifty; that the natives who used 
to follow Stanley, beseeching him to trade, now, according to Consul 
Casement, fly into the bush at the approach of a steamer, and that 
the unselfish sentiment of King Leopold II. has developed into 
dividends of 300 per cent, per annum. Such is the difference between 
Stanley's anticipation and the actual fulfilment. 

Untroubled, however, with any vision as to the destructive effects 
of his own work, Stanley laboured hard among the native chiefs, 
and returned to his employer with no less than 450 alleged treaties 
which transferred land to the Association. We have no record of 
the exact payment made in order to obtain these treaties, but we 
have the terms of a similar transaction carried out by a Belgian 
officer in 1883 at Palabala. In this case the payment made to the 
Chief consisted of "one coat of red cloth with gold facings, one red 
cap, one white tunic, one piece of white baft, one piece of red points, 
one box of liqueurs, four demijohns of rum, two boxes of gin, 128 
bottles of gin, twenty red handkerchiefs, forty singlets and forty 
old cotton caps." It is clear that in making such treaties the Chief 
thought that he was giving permission for the establishment of a 
station. The idea that he was actually bartering away the land was 
never even in his mind, for it was held by a communal tenure for 
the whole tribe, and it was not his to barter. And yet it is on the 
strength of such treaties as these that twenty millions of people have 
been expropriated, and the whole wealth and land of the country 
proclaimed to belong, not to the inhabitants, but to the State — that 
is, to King Leopold. 

With this sheaf of treaties in his portfolio the King of the Belgians 
now approached the Powers with high sentiments of humanitarianism, 



6 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

and with a definite request that the State which he was forming should 

receive some recognized status among the nations. Was he at that 

time consciously hypocritical? Did he already foresee how widely 

his future actions would differ from his present professions? It is 

a problem which will interest the historian of the future, who may 

have more materials than we upon which to form a judgment. On 

the one hand, there was a furtive secrecy about the evolution of 

his plans and the despatch of his expeditions which should have no 

place in a philanthropic enterprise. On the other hand, there are 

limits to human powers of deception, and it is almost inconceivable 

i i • ii iii-i 

that a man who was acting a part could so completely deceive the 

whole civilized world. It is more probable, as it seems to me, that 
his ambitious mind discerned that it was possible for him to acquire 
a field of action which his small kingdom could not give, in mixing 
himself with the affairs of Africa. He chose the obvious path, that 
of a civilizing and elevating mission, taking the line of least resistance 
without any definite idea whither it might lead him. Once faced 
with the facts, his astute brain perceived the great material possi- 
bilities of the country; his early dreams faded away to be replaced 
by unscrupulous cupidity, and step by step he was led downward 
until he, the man of holy aspirations in 1885, stands now in 1909 
with such a cloud of terrible direct personal responsibility resting 
upon him as no man in modern European history has had to bear. 

It is, indeed, ludicrous, with our knowledge of the outcome, to 
read the declarations of the King and of his representatives at that 
time. They were actually forming the strictest of commercial monop- 
olies — an organization which was destined to crush out all general 
private trade in a country as large as the whole of Europe with Russia 
omitted. That was the admitted outcome of their enterprise. Now 
listen to M. Beernaert, the Belgian Premier, speaking in the year 1885 : 

"The State, of which our King will be the Sovereign, will be a 
sort of international Colony. There will be no monopolies, no 
privileges. . . . Quite the contrary: absolute freedom of com- 
merce, freedom of property, freedom of navigation." 

Here, too, are the words of Baron Lambermont, the Belgian 
Plenipotentiary at the Berlin Conference: 

"The temptation to impose abusive taxes will find its corrective, 
if need be, in the freedom of commerce. . . . No doubt exists 



HOW CONGO FREE STATE CAME TO BE FOUNDED 7 

as to the strict and literal meaning of the term ' in commercial mat- 
ters.' It means. . . . the unlimited right for every one to 
buy and to sell." 

The question of humanity is so pressing that it obscures that of 
the broken pledges about trade, but on the latter alone there is ample 
reason to say that every condition upon which this State was founded 
has been openly and notoriously violated, and that, therefore, its 
title-deeds are vitiated from the beginning. 

At the time the professions of the King made the whole world 
his enthusiastic allies. The United States was the first to hasten 
to give formal recognition to the new State. May it be the first, also, 
to realize the truth and to take public steps to retract what it has 
done. The churches and the Chambers of Commerce of Great 
Britain were all for Leopold, the one attracted by the prospect of 
pushing their missions into the heart of Africa, the others delighted 
at the offer of an open market for their produce. At the Congress 
of Berlin, which was called to regulate the situation, the nations vied 
with each other in furthering the plans of the King of the Belgians 
and in extolling his high aims. The Congo Free State was created 
amid general rejoicings. The veteran Bismarck, as credulous 
as the others, pronounced its baptismal blessing. "The New 
Congo State is called upon," said he, "to become one of the chief 
promoters of the work" (of civilization) "which we have in view, 
and I pray for its prosperous development and for the fulfilment of 
the noble aspirations of its illustrious founder." Such was the birth 
of the Congo Free State. Had the nations gathered round been 
able to perceive its future, the betrayal of religion and civilization 
of which it would be guilty, the immense series of crimes which 
it would perpetrate throughout Central Africa, the lowering of 
the prestige of all the white races, they would surely have strangled 
the monster in its cradle. 

It is not necessary to record in this statement the whole of the 
provisions of the Berlin Congress. Two only will suffice, as they 
are at the same time the most important and the most flagrantly 
abused. The first of these (which forms the fifth article of the 
agreement) proclaims that "No Power which exercises sovereign 
rights in the said regions shall be allowed to grant therein either 
monopoly or privilege of any kind in commercial matters." No 
words could be clearer than that, but the Belgian representatives, 



8 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

conscious that such a clause must disarm all opposition, went out 
of their way to accentuate it. "No privileged situation can be 
created in this respect,'' they said. " The way remains open without 
any restriction to free competition in the sphere of commerce." It 
would be interesting now to send a British or German trading expedi- 
tion up the Congo in search of that free competition which has been 
so explicitly promised, and to see how it would fare between the 
monopolist Government and the monopolist companies who have 
divided the land between them. We have travelled some distance 
since Prince Bismarck at the last sitting of the Conference declared 
that the result was "to secure to the commerce of all nations free 
access to the centre of the African Continent." 

More important, however, is Article VI., both on account of the 
issues at stake, and because the signatories of the treaty bound 
themselves solemnly, "in the name of Almighty God," to watch 
over its enforcement. It ran: "All the Powers exercising sovereign 
rights or influence in these territories pledge themselves to watch 
over the preservation of the native populations and the improvement 
of their moral and material conditions of existence, and to work 
together for the suppression of slavery and of the slave trade." That 
was the pledge of the united nations of Europe. It is a disgrace to 
each of them, including ourselves, the way in which they have fulfilled 
that oath. Before their eyes, as I shall show in the sequel, they 
have had enacted one long, horrible tragedy, vouched for by priests 
and missionaries, traders, travellers and consuls, all corroborated, 
but in no way reformed, by a Belgium commission of inquiry. They 
have seen these unhappy people, who were their wards, robbed of 
all they possessed, debauched, degraded, mutilated, tortured, mur- 
dered, all on such a scale as has never, to my knowledge, occurred 
before in the whole course of history, and now, after all these years, 
with all the facts notorious, we are still at the stage of polite diplo- 
matic expostulations. It is no answer to say that France and Ger- 
many have shown even less regard for the pledge they took at Berlin. 
An individual does not condone the fact that he has broken his word 
by pointing out that his neighbour has done the same. 



II 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONGO STATE 

HAVING received his mandate from the civilized world 
King Leopold proceeded to organize the Government of 
the new State, which was in theory to be independent of 
Belgium, although ruled by the same individual. In Europe, King 
Leopold was a constitutional monarch; in Africa, an absolute 
autocrat. There were chosen three ministers for the new State — 
for foreign affairs, for finances and for internal affairs; but it cannot 
be too clearly understood that they and their successors, up to 1908, 
were nominated by the King, paid by the King, answerable only to the 
King, and, in all ways, simply so many upper clerks in his employ. 
The workings of one policy and of one brain, as capable as it is 
sinister, are to be traced in every fresh development. If the ministers 
were ever meant to be a screen, it is a screen which is absolutely 
transparent. The origin of everything is the King — always the 
King. M. van Ectvelde, one of the three head agents, put the matter 
into a single sentence: "C'est a votre majeste qu'appartient FEtat." 
They were simply stewards, who managed the estate with a very 
alert and observant owner at their back. 

One of the early acts was enough to make observers a little thought- 
ful. It was the announcement of the right to issue laws by arbitrary 
decrees without publishing them in Europe. There should be 
secret laws, which could, at any instant, be altered. The^Bj^llediL^ 
Officiel announced that "Tous les Actes du GouTeTnement qu'il y a 
interet a rendre publics seront inseres au Bulletin Officiel." Already 
it is clear that something was in the wind which might shock the 
rather leathery conscience of a European Concert. Meanwhile, 
the organization of the State went forward. A Governor-General 
was elected, who should live at Boma, which was made the capital. 
Under him were fifteen District Commissaries, who should govern 
so many districts into which the whole country was divided. The 
only portion which was at that time at all developed was the semi- 

9 



io THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

civilized Lower Congo at the mouth of the river. There lay the 
white population. The upper reaches of the stream and of its great 
tributaries were known only to a few devoted missionaries and enter- 
prising explorers. Grenfell and Bentley, of the Missions, with Von 
Wissman, the Geman, and the ever-energetic Stanley, were the 
pioneers who, during the few years which followed, opened up the 
great hinterland which was to be the scene of such atrocious events. 

But the work of the explorer had soon to be supplemented and 
extended by the soldier. Whilst the Belgians had been entering the 
Congo land from the west, the slave-dealing Arabs had penetrated 
from the east, passing down the river as far as Stanley Falls. There 
could be no compromise between such opposite forces, though some 
attempt was made to find one by electing the Arab leader as Free 
State Governor. There followed a long scrambling campaign, 
carried on for many years between the Arab slavers on the one side 
and the Congo forces upon the other — the latter consisting largely 
of cannibal tribes — men of the Stone Age, armed with the weapons 
of the nineteenth century. The suppression of the slave trade is 
a good cause, but the means by which it was effected, and the use 
of Barbarians who ate in the evening those whom they had slain 
during the day, are as bad as the evil itself. Yet there is no denying 
the energy and ability of the Congo leaders, especially of Baron 
Dhanis. By the year 1894 the Belgian expeditions had been pushed 
as far as Lake Tanganyika, the Arab strongholds had fallen, and 
Dhanis was able to report to Brussels that the campaign was at an 
end, and that slave-raiding was no more. The new State could 
claim that they had saved a part of the natives from slavery. How 
they proceeded to impose upon all of them a yoke, compared to 
which the old slavery was merciful, will be shown in these pages. 
From the time of the fall of the Arab power the Congo Free State 
was only called upon to use military force in the case of mutinies of 
its own black troops, and of occasional risings of its own tormented 
" citizens." Master of its own house, it could settle down to exploit 
the country which it had won. 

C In the meantime the internal policy of the State showed a tendency 
to take an unusual and sinister course. I have already expressed 
my opinion that King Leopold was not guilty of conscious hypocrisy 
in the beginning, that his intentions were vaguely philanthropic, and 
that it was only by degrees that he sank to the depths which will be 
shown. This view is borne out by some of the earlier edicts of the 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONGO STATE n 

State. In 1886, a long pronouncement upon native lands ended by 
the words: "All acts or agreements are forbidden which tend to the 
expulsion of natives from the territory they occupy, or to deprive them, 
directly or indirectly, of their liberty or their means of existence. " 
Such are the words of 1886. Before the end of 1887, an Act had 
been published, though not immediately put into force, which had 
the exactly opposite effect. By this Act all lands which were not 
actually occupied by natives were proclaimed to be the property of 
the State. Consider for a moment what this meant! No land in 
such a country is actually occupied by natives save the actual site 
of their villages, and the scanty fields of grain or manioc which 
surround them. Everywhere beyond these tiny patches extend the 
plains and forests which have been the ancestral wandering places 
of the natives, and which contain the rubber, the camwood, the 
copal, the ivory, and the skins which are the sole objects of their 
commerce. At a single stroke of a pen in Brussels everything was 
taken from them, not only the country, but the produce of the country^} 
How could they trade when the State had taken from them everything 
which they had to offer? How could the foreign merchant do 
business when the State had seized everything and could sell it for 
itself direct in Europe? Thus, within two years of the establish- 
ment of the State by the Treaty of Berlin, it had with one hand seized 
the whole patrimony of those natives for whose " moral and material 
advantage" it had been so solicitous, and with the other hand it 
had torn up that clause in the treaty by which monopolies were for- 
bidden, and equal trade rights guaranteed to all. How blind were 
the Powers not to see what sort of a creature they had made, and how 
short-sighted not to take urgent steps in those early days to make 
it retrace its steps and find once more the path of loyalty and justice! 
A firm word, a stern act at that time in the presence of this flagrant 
breach of international agreement, would have saved all Central 
Africa from the horror which has come upon it, would have screened 
Belgium from a lasting disgrace, and would have spared Europe a 
question which has already, as it seems to me, lowered the moral 
standing of all the nations, and the end of which is not yeO 

Having obtained possession of the land and its products, the next 
step was to obtain labour by which these products could be safely 
garnered. The first definite move in this direction was taken in the 
year 1888, when, with that odious hypocrisy which has been the last 
touch in so many of these transactions, an Act was produced which 



12 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

was described in the Bulletin Officiel as being for the " Special pro- 
tection of the black." It is evident that the real protection of the 
black in matters of trade was to offer him such pay as would induce 
him to do a day's work, and to let him choose his own employment, 
as is done with the Kaffirs of South Africa, or any other native popu- 
lation. This Act had a very different end. It allowed blacks to 
be bound over in terms of seven years' service to their masters in a 
manner which was in truth indistinguishable from slavery. As the 
negotiations were usually carried on with the capita, or headman, the 
unfortunate servant was transferred with small profit to himself, 
and little knowledge of the conditions of his servitude. Under the 
same system the State also enlisted its employees, including the 
recruits for its small army. This army was supplemented by a wild 
militia, consisting of various barbarous tribes, many of them canni- 
bals, and all of them capable of any excess of cruelty or outrage. A 
German, August Boshart, in his "Zehn Jahre Afrikanischen Lebens," 
has given us a clear idea of how these tribes are recruited, and of the 
precise meaning of the attractive word "libere" when applied to a 
State servant. "Some District Commissary," he says, "receives 
instructions to furnish a certain number of men in a given time. He 
puts himself in communication with the chiefs, and invites them to 
a palaver at his residence. These chiefs, as a rule, already have 
an inkling of what is coming, and, if made wise by experience, make 
a virtue of necessity and present themselves. In that case the 
negotiations run their course easily enough; each chief promises to 
supply a certain number of slaves, and receives presents in return. 
It may happen, however, that one or another pays no heed to the 
friendly invitation, in which case war is declared, his villages are 
burned down, perhaps some of his people are shot, and his stores 
or gardens are plundered. In this way the wild king is soon tamed, 
and he sues for peace, which, of course, is granted on condition of 
his supplying double the number of slaves. These men are entered 
in the State books as 'liberes.' To prevent their running away, they 
are put in irons and sent, on the first opportunity, to one of the 
military camps, where their irons are taken off and they are drafted 
into the army. The District Commissary is paid £2 sterling for 
every serviceable recruit." 

Having taken the country and secured labour for exploiting it in 
the way described, King Leopold proceeded to take further steps 
for its development, all of them exceedingly well devised for the object 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONGO STATE 13 

in view. The great impediment to the navigation of the Congo 
had lain in the continuous rapids which made the river impassable 
from Stanley Pool for three hundred miles down to Boma at the 
mouth. A company was now formed to find the capital by which 
a railway should be built between these two points. The construction 
was begun in 1888, and was completed in 1898, after many financial 
vicissitudes, forming a work which deserves high credit as a piece of 
ingenious engineering and of sustained energy. Other commercial 
companies, of which more will be said hereafter, were formed in order 
to exploit large districts of the country which the State was not 
yet strong enough to handle. By this arrangement the companies 
found the capital for exploring, station building, etc., while the 
State — that is, the King — retained a certain portion, usually 
half, of the company's shares. The plan itself is not necessarily 
a vicious one; indeed, it closely resembles that under which the 
Chartered Company of Rhodesia grants mining and other leases. 
The scandal arose from the methods by which these companies 
proceeded to carry out their ends — those methods being the same as 
were used by the State, on whose pattern these smaller organizations 
were moulded. 

In the meantime King Leopold, feeling the weakness of his personal 
position in face of the great enterprise which lay before him in Africa, 
endeavoured more and more to draw Belgium, as a State, into the 
matter. Already the Congo State was largely the outcome of Belgian 
work and of Belgian money, but, theoretically, there was no con- 
nection between the two countries. Now the Belgian Parliament 
was won over to advancing ten million francs for the use of the 
Congo, and thus a direct connection sprang up which has eventually 
led to annexation. At the time of this loan King Leopold let it be 
known that he had left the Congo Free State in his will to Belgium. 
In this document appear the words, "A young and spacious State, 
directed from Brussels, has pacifically appeared in the sunlight, 
thanks to the benevolent support of the Powers that have welcomed 
its appearance. Some Belgians administer it, while others, each day 
more numerous, there increase their wealth." So he flashed the gold 
before the eyes of his European subjects. Verily, if King Leopold 
deceived other Powers, he reserved the most dangerous of all his 
deceits for his own country. The day on which they turned from 
their own honest, healthy development to follow the Congo lure, and 
to administer without any previous colonial experience a country 



i 4 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

more than sixty times their own size, will prove to have been a dark 
day in Belgian history. 

The Berlin Conference of 1885 marks the first International 
session upon the affairs of the Congo. The second was the Brussels 
Conference of 1889-90. It is amazing to find that after these years 
of experience the Powers were still ready to accept King Leopold's 
professions at their face value. It is true that none of the more 
sinister developments had been conspicuous, but the legislation of 
the State with regard to labour and trade was already such as to sug- 
gest the turn which affairs would take in future if not curbed by a 
strong hand. One Power, and one only, Holland, had the sagacity 
to appreciate the true situation, and the independence to show its 
dissatisfaction. The outcome of the sittings was various philan- 
thropic resolutions intended to strengthen the new State in dealing 
with that slave trade it was destined to re-introduce in its most odious 
form. We are too near to these events, and they are too painfully 
intimate, to permit us to see humour in them; but the historian of 
the future, when he reads that the object of the European Concert 
was "to protect effectually the aboriginal inhabitants of Africa," 
may find it difficult to suppress a smile. This was the last European 
assembly to deal with the affairs of the Congo. May the next be for 
the purpose of taking steps to truly carry out those high ends which 
have been forever spoken of and never reduced to practice. 

The most important practical outcome of the Brussels Conference 
was that the Powers united to free the new State from those free 
port promises which it had made in 1885, and to permit it in future 
to levy ten per cent, upon imports. The Act was hung up for two 
years owing to the opposition of Holland, but the fact of its adoption 
by the other Powers, and the renewed mandate given to King Leo- 
pold, strengthened the position of the new State to such an extent 
that it found no difficulty in securing a further loan from Belgium 
of twenty-five millions of francs, upon condition that, after ten years, 
Belgium should have the option of taking over the Congo lands as a 
colony. 

If in the years which immediately succeeded the Brussels Con- 
ference — from 1890 to 1894 — a bird's-eye view could be taken 
of the enormous river which, with its tributaries, forms a great twisted 
fan radiating over the whole centre of Africa, one would mark in 
all directions symptoms of European activity. At the Lower Congo 
one would see crowds of natives, impressed for the service and 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONGO STATE 15 

guarded by black soldiers, working at the railway. At Boma and 
at Leopoldsville, the two termini of the projected line, cities are 
rising, with stations, wharves and public buildings. In the extreme 
southeast one would see an expedition under Stairs exploring and 
annexing the great district of Katanga, which abuts upon Northern 
Rhodesia. In the furthest northeast and along the whole eastern 
border, small military expeditions would be disclosed, fighting against 
rebellious blacks or Arab raiders. Then, along all the lines of the 
rivers, posts were being formed and stations established — some 
by the State and some by the various concessionnaire companies 
for the development of their commerce. 

In the meantime, the State was tightening its grip upon the land 
with its products, and was working up the system which was destined 
to produce such grim results in the near future. The independent 
traders were discouraged and stamped out, Belgium, as well as Dutch, 
English and French. Some of the loudest protests against the new 
order may be taken from Belgian sources. Everywhere, in flagrant 
disregard of the Treaty of Berlin, the State proclaimed itself to be 
the sole landlord and the sole trader. In some cases it worked 
its own so-called property, in other cases it leased it. Even those 
who had striven to help King Leopold in the earlier stages of his 
enterprise were thrown overboard. Major Parminter, himself 
engaged in trade upon the Congo, sums up the situation in 1902 as 
follows: "To sum up, the application of the new decrees of the 
Government signifies this: that the State considers as its private 
property the whole of the Congo Basin, excepting the sites of the 
natives' villages and gardens. It decrees that all the products of 
this immense region are its private property, and it monopolizes the 
trade in them. As regards the primitive proprietors, the native tribes, 
they are dispossessed by a simple circular; permission is graciously 
granted to them to collect such products, but only on condition that 
they bring them for sale to the State for whatever the latter may be 
pleased to give them. As regards alien traders, they are prohibited 
in all this territory from trading with the natives." 
^Everywhere there were stern orders — to the natives on the one 
hand, that they had no right to gather the products of their own 
forests; to independent traders on the other hand, that they were 
liable to punishment if they bought anything from the natives. In 
January, 1892, District Commissary Baert wrote: "The native 
of the district of Ubangi-Welle are not authorized to gather rubber. 



16 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

It has been notified to them that they can only receive permission to 
do so on condition that they gather the produce for the exclusive 
benefit of the State." Captain Le Marinel, a little later, is even more 
explicit: "I have decided," he says, "to enforce rigorously the rights 
of the State over its domain, and, in consequence, cannot allow the 
natives to convert to their own profit, or to sell to others, any part of 
the rubber or ivory forming the fruits of the domain. Traders who 
purchase, or attempt to purchase, such fruits of this domain from 
the natives — which fruits the State only authorizes the natives to 
gather subject to the condition that they are brought to it — render 
themselves, in my opinion, guilty of receiving stolen goods, and I 
shall denounce them to the judicial authorities, so that proceedings 
may be taken against them." This last edict was in the Bangala 
district, but it was followed at once by another from the more settled 
Equateur district, which shows that the strict adoption of the system 
was universal. In May, 1892, Lieutenant Lemaire proclaims: 
" Considering that no concession has been granted to gather rubber 
in the domains of the State within this district, (1) natives can 
only gather rubber on condition of selling the same to the State; 
(2) any person or persons or vessels having in his or their possession, 
or on board, more than one kilogramme of rubber will have a proces- 
verbal drawn up against him, or them, or it; and the ship can be 
confiscated without prejudice to any subsequent proceedings." 

The sight of these insignificant lieutenants and captains, who are 
often non-commissioned officers of the Belgian army, issuing proc- 
lamations which were in distinct contradiction to the expressed will 
of all the great Powers of the world, might at the time have seemed 
ludicrous; but the history of the next seventeen years was to prove 
that a small malignant force, driven on by greed, may prove to be 
more powerful than a va,gue general philanthropy, strong only in 
good intentions and platitudes. During these years — from 1890 
to 1895 — whatever indignation might be felt among traders over 
the restrictions placed upon them, the only news received by the 
general public from the Congo Free State concerned the founding of 
new stations, and the idea prevailed that King Leopold's enterprise 
was indeed working out upon the humanitarian lines which had been 
originally planned. Then, for the first time, incidents occurred 
which gave some glimpse of the violence and anarchy which really 
prevailed. 

The first of these, so far as Great Britain is concerned, lay in the 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONGO STATE 17 

treatment of natives from Sierra Leone, Lagos, and other British 
Settlements, who had been engaged by the Belgians to come to 
Congoland and help in railway construction and other work. Com- 
ing from the settled order of such a colony as Sierra Leone or Lagos, 
these natives complained loudly when they found themselves working 
side by side with impressed Congolese, and under the discipline of 
the armed sentinels of the Force Publique. They were discontented 
and the discontent was met by corporal punishment. The matter 
grew to the dimensions of a scandal. 

In answer to a question asked in the House of Commons on March 
12th, 1896, Mr. Chamberlain, as Secretary of State for the Colonies, 
stated that complaints had been received of these British subjects 
having been employed without their consent as soldiers, and of their 
having been cruelly flogged, and, in some cases, shot; and he added: 
" They were engaged with the knowledge of Her Majesty's represen- 
tatives, and every possible precaution was taken in their interests; 
but, in consequence of the complaints received, the recruitment of 
labourers for the Congo has been prohibited. " 

This refusal of the recruitment of labourers by Great Britain was 
the first public and national sign of disapproval of Congolese methods. 
A few years later, a more pointed one was given, when the Italian War 
Ministry refused to allow their officers to serve with the Congo forces. 

Early in 1895 occurred the Stokes affair, which moved public 
opinion deeply, both in this country and in Germany. Charles 
Henry Stokes was an Englishman by birth, but he resided in German 
East Africa, was the recipient of a German Decoration for his services 
on behalf of German colonization, and formed his trading caravans 
from a German base, with East African natives as his porters. He 
had led such a caravan over the Congo State border, when he was ar- 
rested by Captain Lothaire, an officer in command of some Congolese 
troops. The unfortunate Stokes may well have thought himself 
safe as the subject of one great Power and the agent of another, but 
he was tried instantly in a most informal manner upon a charge of 
selling guns to the natives, was condemned, and was hanged on the 
following morning. When Captain Lothaire reported his proceed- 
ings to his superiors they signified their approbation by promoting 
bim to the high rank of Commissaire- General. 

The news of this tragedy excited as much indignation in Berlin 
as in London. Faced with the facts, the representatives of the 
Free State in Brussels — that is, the agents of the King — were 



18 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

compelled to admit the complete illegality of the whole incident, 
and could only fall back upon the excuse that Lothaire's action 
was bona-fide, and free from personal motive. This is by no means 
certain, for as Baron von Marschall pointed out to the acting British 
Ambassador at Berlin, Stokes was known to be a successful trader 
in ivory, exporting it by the east route, and so depriving the officers 
of the Congo Government of a ten per cent, commission, which would 
be received by them if it were exported by the west route. "This 
was the reason," the report continued, quoting the German States- 
man's words, "that he had been done away with, and not on account 
of an alleged sale of arms to Arabs, his death being, in fact, not an 
act of justice, but one of commercial protection, neither more nor 
less." 

This was one reading of the situation. Whether it was a true 
one or not, there could be no two opinions as to the illegality of the 
proceedings. Under pressure from England, Lothaire was tried at 
Boma and acquitted. He was again, under the same pressure, tried 
at Brussels, when the Prosecuting Counsel thought it consistent with 
his duty to plead for an acquittal and the proceedings became a 
fiasco. There the matter was allowed to remain. A Blue Book 
of 1 88 pages is the last monument to Charles Henry Stokes, and 
his executioner returned to high office in the Congo Free State, where 
his name soon recurred in the accounts of the violent and high-handed 
proceedings which make up the history of that country. He was 
appointed Director of the Antwerp Society for the Commerce of the 
Congo — an appointment for which King Leopold must have been 
responsible — and he managed the affairs of that company until 
he was implicated in the Mongalla massacres, of which more will 
be said hereafter. 

It has been necessary to describe the case of Stokes, because it 
is historical, but nothing is further from my intention than to address 
national amour propre in the matter. It was a mere accident that 
Stokes was an Englishman, and the outrage remains the same had 
he been a citizen of any State. The cause I plead is too broad, and 
also too lofty, to be supported by any narrower appeals than those 
which may be addressed to all humanity. I will proceed to describe 
a case which occurred a few years later to show that men of other 
nationalities suffered as well as the English. Stokes, the English- 
man, was killed, and his death, it was said by some Congolese apolo- 
gists, was due to his not having, after his summary trial, announced 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONGO STATE 19 

that he would lodge an immediate appeal to the higher court at Boma. 
Rabinck, the Austrian, the victim of similar proceedings, did appeal 
to the higher court at Boma, and it is interesting to see what advantage 
he gained by doing so. 

Rabinck was, as I have said, an Austrian from Olmutz, a man of 
a gentle and lovable nature, popular with all who knew him, and 
remarkable, as several have testified, for his just and kindly treatment 
of the natives. He had, for some years, traded with the people of 
Katanga, which is the southeastern portion of the Congo State 
where it abuts upon British Central Africa. The natives were at 
the time in arms against the Belgians, but Rabinck had acquired 
such influence among them that he was still able to carry on his 
trade in ivory and rubber for which he held a permit from the Katanga 
Company. 

Shortly after receiving this permit, for which he had paid a con- 
siderable sum, certain changes were made in the company by which 
the State secured a controlling influence in it. A new manager, Major 
Weyns, appeared, who represented the new regime, superseding M. 
Le*veque, who had sold the permits in the name of the original com- 
pany. Major Weyns was zealous that the whole trade of the country 
should belong to the Concessionnaire Company, which was practically 
the Government, according to the usual, but internationally illegal, 
habit of the State. To secure this trade, the first step was evidently 
to destroy so well-known and successful a private trader as M. 
Rabinck. In spite of his permits, therefore, a charge was trumped 
up against him of having traded illegally in rubber — an offence 
which, even if he had no permit, was an impossibility in the face 
of that complete freedom of trade which was guaranteed . by the 
Treaty of Berlin. The young Austrian could not bring himself to 
believe that the matter was serious. His letters are extant, showing 
that he regarded the matter as so preposterous that he could not feel 
any fears upon the subject. He was soon to be undeceived, and his 
eyes were opened too late to the character of the men and the organi- 
zation with which he was dealing. Major Weyns sat in court- 
martial upon him. The offence with which he was charged, dealing 
illegally in rubber, was one which could only be punished by a 
maximum imprisonment of a month. This would not serve the 
purpose in view. Major Weyns within forty minutes tried the case, 
condemned the prisoner, and sentenced him to a year's imprisonment. 
There was an attempt to excuse this monstrous sentence afterward by 



20 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

the assertion that the crime punished was that of selling guns to 
the natives, but as a matter of fact there was at the time no mention 
of anything of the sort, as is proved by the existing minutes of the 
trial. Rabinck naturally appealed against such a sentence. He 
would have been wiser had he submitted to it in the nearest guard- 
house. In that case he might possibly have escaped with his life. 
In the other, he was doomed. "He will go," said Major Weyns, 
"on such a nice little voyage that he will act like this no more, and 
others will take example from it." The voyage in question was the 
two thousand miles which separated Katanga from the Appeal 
Court at Boma. He was to travel all this way under the sole escort 
of black soldiers, who had their own instructions. The unfortunate 
man felt that he could never reach his destination alive. "Rumours 
have it," he wrote to his relatives, "that Europeans who have been 
taken are poisoned, so if I disappear without further news you may 
guess what has become of me." Nothing more was heard from him 
save two agonized letters, begging officials to speed him on his way. 
He died, as he had foreseen, on the trip down the Congo, and was 
hurriedly buried in a wayside station when two hours more would 
have brought the body to Leopoldville. If it is possible to add a 
darker shadow to the black business it lies in the fact that the apolo- 
gists of the State endeavoured to make the world believe that their 
victim's death was due to his own habit of taking morphia. The 
fact is denied by four creditable witnesses, who knew him well, but 
most of all is it denied by the activity and energy which had made 
him one of the leading traders of Central Africa — too good a trader 
to be allowed open competition with King Leopold's huge commercial 
monopoly. As a last and almost inconceivable touch, the whole of 
the dead man's caravans and outfits, amounting to some ^15,000, 
were seized by those who had driven him to his death, and by the 
last reports neither his relatives nor his creditors have received any 
portion of this large sum. Consider the whole story and say if it is 
exaggeration to state that Gustav Maria Rabinck was robbed 
and murdered by the Congo Free State. 

Having shown in these two examples the way in which the Congo 
Free State has dared to treat the citizens of European States who 
have traded within her borders, I will now proceed to detail, in 
chronological order, some account of the dark story of that State's 
relations to the subject races, for whose moral and material advantage 
we and other European Powers have answered. For every case I 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONGO STATE 21 

chronicle there are a hundred which are known, but which cannot 
here be dealt with. For every one known, there are ten thousand, 
the story of which never came to Europe. Consider how vast is the 
country, and how few the missionaries or consuls who alone would 
report such matters. Consider also that every official of the Congo 
State is sworn neither at the time nor ajterward to reveal any matter 
that may have come to his knowledge. Consider, lastly, that the 
missionary or consul acts as a deterrent, and that it is in the huge 
stretch of country where neither are to be found that the agent has 
his own unfettered way. With all these considerations, is it not 
clear that all the terrible facts which we know are but the mere 
margin of that welter of violence and injustice which the Jesuit, 
Father Vermeersch, has summed up in the two words, " Immeasur- 
able Misery!" 



Ill 

THE WORKING OF THE SYSTEM 

HAVING claimed, as I have shown, the whole of the land, and 
therefore the whole of its products, the State — that is, the 
King — proceeded to construct a system by which these pro- 
ducts could be gathered most rapidly and at least cost. The essence 
of this system was that the people who had been dispossessed (ironic- 
ally called " citizens") were to be forced to gather, for the profit of the 
State, those very products which had been taken from them. This 
was to be effected by two means; the one, taxation, by which an 
arbitrary amount, ever growing larger until it consumed almost their 
whole lives in the gathering, should be claimed for nothing. The 
other, so-called barter by which the natives were paid for the stuff 
exactly what the State chose to give, and in the form the State chose 
to give it, there being no competition allowed from any other pur- 
chaser. This remuneration, ridiculous in value, took the most 
absurd shape, the natives being compelled to take it, whatever the 
amount, and however little they might desire it. Consul Thesiger, 
in 1908, describing their so-called barter, says: "The goods he pro- 
ceeds to distribute, giving a hat to one man, or an iron hoe-head to 
another, and so on. Each recipient is then at the end of a month 
responsible for so many balls of rubber. No choice of the objects is 
given, no refusal is allowed. If any one makes any objection, the 
stuff is thrown down at his door, and whether it is taken or left, the 
man is responsible for so many balls at the end of the month. The 
total amounts are fixed by the agents at the maximum which the 
inhabitants are capable of producing." 

But is it not clear that no natives, especially tribes who, as 
Stanley has recorded, had remarkable aptitude for trade, would 
do business at all upon such terms ? That is just where the system 
came in. 

By this system some two thousand white agents were scattered over 
the Free State to collect the produce. These whites were placed 

22 



THE WORKING OF THE SYSTEM 23 

in ones and twos in the more central points, and each was given a 
tract of country containing a certain number of villages. By the 
help of the inmates he was to gather the rubber, which was the most 
valuable asset. These whites, many of whom were men of low 
morale before they left Europe, were wretchedly paid, the scale run- 
ning from 150 to 300 francs a month. This pay they might supple- 
ment by a commission or bonus on the amount of rubber collected. 
If their returns were large it meant increased pay, official praise, a 
more speedy return to Europe, and a better chance of promotion. 
If, on the other hand, the returns were small, it meant poverty, harsh 
reproof and degradation. No system could be devised by which 
a body of men could be so driven to attain results at any cost. It is 
not to the absolute discredit of Belgians that such an existence should 
have demoralized them, and, indeed, there were other nationalities 
besides Belgians in the ranks of the agents. I doubt if Englishmen, 
Americans, or Germans could have escaped the same result had they 
been exposed in a tropical country to similar temptations. 

And now, the two thousand agents being in place, and eager to 
enforce the collection of rubber upon very unwilling natives, how 
did the system intend that they should set about it? The method 
was as efficient as it was absolutely diabolical. Each agent was given 
control over a certain number of savages, drawn from the wild tribes, 
but armed with firearms. One or more of these was placed in each 
village to ensure that the villagers should do their task. These are 
the men who are called "capitas," or head-men in the accounts, and 
who are the actual, though not the moral, perpetrators of so many 
horrible deeds. Imagine the nightmare which lay upon each village 
while this barbarian squatted in the midst of it. Day or night they 
could never get away from him. He called for palm wine. He 
called for women. He beat them, mutilated them, and shot them 
down at his pleasure. He enforced public incest in order to amuse 
himself by the sight. Sometimes they plucked up spirit and killed 
him. The Belgian Commission records that 142 capitas had been 
killed in seven months in a single district. Then came the punitive 
expedition, and the destruction of the whole community. The more 
terror the capita inspired, the more useful he was, the more eagerly 
the villagers obeyed him, and the more rubber yielded its commission 
to the agent. When the amount fell off, then the capita was himself 
made to feel some of those physical pains which he had inflicted upon 
others. Often the white agent far exceeded in cruelty the barbarian 



24 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

who carried out his commissions. Often, too, the white man pushed 
the black aside, and acted himself as torturer and executioner. 
As a rule, however, the relationship was as I have stated, the out- 
rages being actually committed by the capitas, but with the approval 
of, and often in the presence of, their white employers. 

It would be absurd to suppose that the agents were all equally 
merciless, and that there were not some who were torn in two by the 
desire for wealth and promotion on the one side and the horror of 
their daily task upon the other. Here are two illustrative extracts 
from the letters of Lieutenant Tilkens, as quoted by Mr. Vandervelde 
in the debate in the Belgian Chamber: "The steamer v. d. Kerkhove 
is coming up the Nile. It will require the colossal number of fifteen 
hundred porters — unhappy blacks! I cannot think of them. I ask 
myself how I shall find such a number. If the roads were passable 
it would make some difference, but they are hardly cleared of morasses 
where many will meet their death. Hunger and weariness will make 
an end of many more in the eight days' march. How much blood 
will the transport make to flow ? Already I have had to make war 
three times against the chieftains who will not take part in this work. 
The people prefer to die in the forest instead of doing this work. If 
a chieftain refuses, it is war, and this horrible war — perfect firearms 
against spear and lance. A chieftain has just left me with the com- 
plaint: 'My village is in ruins, my women are killed.' But what can 
I do? I am often compelled to put these unhappy chieftains into 
chains until they collect one or two hundred porters. Very often my 
soldiers find the villages empty, then they seize the women and 
children." 

To his mother he writes: 

"Com. Verstraeten visited my station and highly congratulated 
me. He said the attitude of his report hung upon the quantity of 
rubber I would bring. My quantity rose from 360 kilos in September 
to 1,500 in October, and from January it will be 4,000 per month, 
which gives me 500 francs over my pay. Am I not a lucky fellow ? 
And if I continue, in two years I shall have reached an additional 
12,000 francs." 

But a year later he writes in a different tone to Major Leussens: 

"I look forward to a general rising. I warned you before, I 
think, already in my last letter. The cause is always the same. 



THE WORKING OF THE SYSTEM 25 

The natives are weary of the hitherto regime — transport labour, 
collection of rubber, preparation of food stores for blacks and whites. 
Again for three months I have had to fight with only ten days' rest. 
I have 152 prisoners. For two years now I have been carrying on 
war in this neighbourhood. But I cannot say I have subjected the 
people. They prefer to die. What can I do ? I am paid to do my 
work, I am a tool in the hands of my superiors, and I follow orders 
as discipline requires." 

Let us consider now for an instant the chain of events which 
render such a situation not only possible, but inevitable. The State 
is run with the one object of producing revenue. For this end all 
land and its produce are appropriated. How, then, is this produce 
to be gathered? It can only be by the natives. But if the natives 
gather it they must be paid their price, which will diminish profits, 
or else they will refuse to work. Then they must be made to work. 
But the agents are too few to make them work. Then they must 
employ such sub-agents as will strike most terror into the people. 
But if these sub-agents are to make the people work all the time, 
then they must themselves reside in the villages. So a capita must 
be sent as a constant terror to each village. Is it not clear that these 
steps are not accidental, but are absolutely essential to the original 
idea? Given the confiscation of the land, all the rest must logically 
follow. It is utterly futile, therefore, to imagine that any reform can 
set matters right. Such a thing is impossible. Until unfettered trade 
is unconditionally restored, as it now exists in every German and 
English colony, it is absolutely out of the question that any specious 
promises or written decrees can modify the situation. But, on the 
other hand, if trade be put upon this natural basis, then for many years 
the present owners of the Congo land, instead of sharing dividends, 
must pay out at least a million a year to administer the country, 
exactly as England pays half a million a year to administer the 
neighbouring land of Nigeria. To grasp that fact is to understand 
the root of the whole question. 

And one more point before we proceed to the dark catalogue of the 
facts. Where did the responsibility for these deeds of blood, these 
thousands of cold-blooded murders lie? Was it with the capita? 

He was a cannibal and a ruffian, but if he did not inspire terror in the 
village he was himself punished by the agent. Was it, then, with the 
agent ? He was a degraded man, and yet, as I have already said, no 
men could serve on such terms in a tropical country without degrada- 



26 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

tion. He was goaded and driven to crime by the constant clamour 
from those above him. Was it, then, with the District Commissary ? 
He had reached a responsible and well-paid post, which he would 
lose if his particular district fell behind in the race of production. 
Was it, then, with the Governor- General at Boma? He was a man 
of a hardened conscience, but for him also there was mitigation. He 
was there for a purpose with definite orders from home which it was 
his duty to carry through. It would take a man of exceptional 
character to throw up his . high position, sacrifice his career, and 
refuse to carry out the evil system which had been planned before 
he was allotted a place in it. Where, then, was the guilt ? There were 
half a dozen officials in Brussels who were, as shown already, so 
many bailiffs paid to manage a property upon lines laid down for 
them. Trace back the chain from the red-handed savage, through 
the worried, bilious agent, the pompous Commissary, the dignified 
Governor- General, the smooth diplomatist, and you come finally, 
without a break, and without a possibility of mitigation or excuse, up 
the cold, scheming brain which framed and drove the whole machine. 
It is upon the King, always the King, that the guilt must lie. He 
planned it, knowing the results which must follow. They did follow. 
He was well informed of it. Again and again, and yet again, his 
attention was drawn to it. A word from him would have altered the 
system. The word was never said. There is no possible subterfuge 
by which the moral guilt can be deflected from the head of the State, 
the man who went to Africa for the freedom of commerce and the 
regeneration of the native. 



IV 

FIRST FRUITS OF THE SYSTEM 

THE first testimony which I shall cite is that of Mr. Glave, 
which covers the years 1893 U P to ms death in 1895. Mr. 
Glave was a young Englishman, who had been for six years 
in the employ of the State, and whose character and work were highly 
commended by Stanley. Four years after the expiration of his 
engagement he travelled as an independent man right across the 
whole country, from Tanganyika in the east to Matadi near the 
mouth of the river, a distance of 2,000 miles. The agent and 
rubber systems were still in their infancy, but already he remarked 
on every side that violence and disregard of human life which were so 
soon to grow to such proportions. Remember that he was himself a 
Stanleyman, a pioneer and a native trader, by no means easy to 
shock. Here are some of his remarks as taken from his diary. 

Dealing with the release of slaves by the Belgians, for which so 
much credit has been claimed, he says (Cent. Mag., Vol. 53) : 

" They are supposed to be taken out of slavery and freed, but I 
fail to see how this can be argued out. They are taken from their 
villages and shipped south, to be soldiers, workers, etc., on the State 
stations, and what were peaceful families have been broken up, and 
the different members spread about the place. They have to be 
made fast and guarded for transportation, or they would all run away. 
This does not look as though the freedom promised had any seductive 
prospects. The young children thus 'liberated' are handed over to 
the French mission stations, where they receive the kindest care, but 
nothing justifies this form of serfdom. I can understand the State 
compelling natives to do a certain amount of work for a certain time; 
but to take people forcibly from their homes, and despatch them here 
and there, breaking up families, is not right. I shall learn more 
about this on the way and at Kabambare. If these conditions are to 
exist, I fail to see how the anti-slavery movement is to benefit the 
native." 

27 



28 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

With regard to the use of barbarous soldiers he says: 

"State soldiers are also employed without white officers. This 
should not be allowed, for the black soldiers do not understand the 
reason of the fighting, and instead of submission being sought, often 
the natives are massacred or driven away into the hill. . . . But 
the black soldiers are bent on fighting and raiding; they want no 
peaceful settlement. They have good rifles and ammunition, realize 
their superiority over the natives with their bows and arrows, and they 
want to shoot and kill and rob. Black delights to kill black, whether 
the victim be man, woman, or child, and nc matter how defenceless. 
This is no reasonable way of settling the land; it is merely persecution. 
Blacks cannot be employed on such an errand unless under the leader- 
ship of whites." 

He met and describes one Lieutenant Hambursin, who seems 
to have been a capable officer: 

" Yesterday the natives in a neighbouring village came to complain 
that one of Hambursin' s soldiers had killed a villager; they brought 
in the offender's gun. To-day at roll-call the soldier appeared with- 
out his gun; his guilt was proved, and without more to do, he was 
hanged on a tree. Hambursin has hanged several for the crime of 
murder." 

Had there been more Hambursins there might have been fewer 
scandals. Glave proceeds to comment on treatment of prisoners: 

"In stations in charge of white men, Government officers, one 
sees strings of poor emaciated old women, some of them mere skele- 
tons, working from six in the morning till noon, and from half-past 
two till six, carrying clay water-jars, tramping about in gangs, with 
a rope round the neck, and connected by a rope one and a half yards 
apart. They are prisoners of war. In war the old women are always 
caught, but should receive a little humanity. They are naked, except 
for a miserable patch of cloth of several parts, held in place by a 
string round the waist. They are not loosened from the rope for any 
purpose. They live in the guard-house under the charge of black 
native sentries, who delight in slapping and ill-using them, for pity is 
not in the heart of the native. Some of the women have babies, but 
they go to work just the same. They form, indeed, a miserable 
spectacle, and one wonders that old women, although prisoners of 



FIRST FRUITS OF THE SYSTEM 29 

war, should not receive a little more consideration; at least, their 
nakedness might be hidden. The men prisoners are treated in a far 
better way." 

Describing the natives he says: 

"The natives are not lazy, good-for-nothing fellows. Their 
fine powers are obtained by hard work, sobriety and frugal living." 

He gives a glimpse of what the chicotte is like, the favourite and 
universal instrument of torture used by the agents and officers of the 
Free State: 

"The 'chicotte' of raw hippo hide, especially a new one, trimmed 
like a corkscrew, with edges like knife-blades, and as hard as wood, 
is a terrible weapon, and a few blows bring blood; not more than 
twenty-five blows should be given unless the offence is very serious. 
Though we persuaded ourselves that the African's skin is very tough 
it needs an extraordinary constitution to withstand the terrible punish- 
ment of one hundred blows; generally the victim is in a state of 
insensibility after twenty-five or thirty blows. At the first blow he 
yells abominably; then he quiets down, and is a mere groaning, 
quivering body till the operation is over, when the culprit stumbles 
away, often with gashes which will endure a lifetime. It is bad enough 
the flogging of men, but far worse is this punishment when inflicted 
on women and children. Small boys of ten or twelve, with 
excitable, hot-tempered masters, often are most harshly treated. 
At Kasnogo there is a great deal of cruelty displayed. I saw 
two boys very badly cut. I conscientiously believe that a man who 
receives one hundred blows is often nearly killed, and has his 
spirit broken for life." 

He has a glimpse of the treatment of the subjects of other nations : 

"Two days before my arrival (at Wabundu) two Sierra Leoneans 
were hanged by Laschet. They were sentries on guard, and while 
they were asleep allowed a native chief, who was a prisoner and in 
chains, to escape. Next morning Laschet, in a fit of rage, hanged the 
two men. They were British subjects, engaged by the Congo Free 
State as soldiers. In time of war, I suppose, they could be executed, 
after court-martial, by being shot; but to hang a subject of any other 
country without trial seems to me outrageous." 



30 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

Talking of the general unrest he says : 

"It is the natural outcome of the harsh, cruel policy of the State 
in wringing rubber from these people without paying for it. The 
revolution will extend." He adds: "The post (Isangi) is close to the 
large settlement of an important coast man, Kayamba, who now is 
devoted to the interests of the State, catching slaves for them, and 
stealing ivory from the natives of the interior. Does the philanthropic 
King of the Belgians know about this? If not, he ought to." 

As he gets away from the zone of war, and into that which should 
represent peace, his comments become more bitter. The nascent 
rubber trade began to intrude its methods upon his notice: 

"Formerly the natives were well treated, but now expeditions 
have been sent in every direction, forcing natives to make rubber 
and to bring it to the stations. Up the Ikelemba, we are taking 
down one hundred slaves, mere children, all taken in unholy wars 
against the natives. ... It was not necessary in the olden 
times, when we white men had no force at all. This forced commerce 
is depopulating the country. . . . Left Equateur at eleven 
o'clock this morning, after taking on a cargo of one hundred small 
slaves, principally boys, seven or eight years old, with a few girls 
among the batch, all stolen from the natives. The Commissary of the 
district is a violent-tempered fellow. While arranging to take on the 
hundred small slaves a woman who had charge of the youngsters was 
rather slow in understanding his order, delivered in very poor Kabanji. 
He sprang at her, slapped her in the face, and as she ran away, 
kicked her. They talk of philanthropy and civilization! Where it 
is, I do not know." 

And again: 

"Most white officers out on the Congo are averse to the india- 
rubber policy of the State, but the laws command it. Therefore, 
at each post one finds the natives deserting their homes, and escaping 
to the French side of the river when possible." 

As he goes on his convictions grow stronger: 

"Everywhere," he said, "I hear the same news of the doings of 
the Congo Free State — rubber and murder, slavery in its worst 



FIRST FRUITS OF THE SYSTEM 31 

form. It is said that half the libe*re"s sent down die on the road. 
. . . In Europe we understand from the word lib£r£s slaves 
saved from their cruel masters. Not at all! Most of them result 
from wars made against the natives because of ivory or rubber.'' 

On all sides he sees evidence of the utter disregard of humanity : 

" To-day I saw the dead body of a carrier lying on the trail. There 
could have been no mistake about his being a sick man; he was 
nothing but skin and bones. These posts ought to give some care to 
the porters ; the heartless disregard for life is abominable. . . . 
Native life is considered of no value by the Belgians. No wonder 
the State is hated." 

Finally, a little before his death, he heard of that practice of 
mutilation which was one of the most marked fruits of the policy 
of " moral and material advantage of the native races" promised 
at the Berlin Conference: 

"Mr. Harvey heard from Clarke, who is at Lake Mantumba, 
that the State soldiers have been in the vicinity of his station recently 
fighting and taking prisoners ; and he himself had seen several men 
with bunches of hands signifying their individual skill. These, I 
presume, they must produce to prove their success! Among the 
hands were those of men and women, and also those of little children. 
The missionaries are so much at the mercy of the State that they do 
not report these barbaric happenings to the people at home. I have 
previously heard of hands, among them children's, being brought to 
the stations, but I was not so satisfied of the truth of the former 
information as of the reports received just now by Mr. Harvey from 
Clarke. Much of this sort of thing is going on at the Equateur Station. 
The methods employed are not necessary. Years ago, when I 
was on duty at the Equateur without soldiers, I never had any dif- 
ficulty in getting what men I needed, nor did any other station in the 
old, humane days. The stations and the boats then had no difficulty 
in finding men or labour, nor will the Belgians, if they introduce more 
reasonable methods." 

A sentence which is worth noting is that "The missionaries are 
so much at the mercy of the State that they do not report these bar- 
baric happenings to the people at home." Far from the question 
being one, which, as the apologists for King Leopold have contended, 



32 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

has been fomented by the missionaries, it has actually been held back 
by them, and it is only the courage and truthfulness of a handful of 
Englishmen and Americans which have finally brought it to the front. 

So much for Mr. Glave's testimony. He was an English traveller. 
Mr. Murphy, an American missionary, was working in another part 
of the country, the region where the Ubangi joins the Congo, during 
the same years. Let us see how far his account, written entirely inde- 
pendently (Times, November 18, 1895), agrees with the other: 

"I have seen these things done," he said, "and have remonstrated 
with the State in the years 1888, 1889, and 1894, but never got satis- 
faction. I have been in the interior and have seen the ravages made 
by the State in pursuit of this iniquitous trade. Let me give an 
incident to show how this unrighteous trade affects the people. One 
day a State corporal, who was in charge of the post of Solifa, was 
going round the town collecting rubber. Meeting a poor woman, 
whose husband was away fishing, he asked : ' Where is your husband ? ' 
She answered by pointing to the river. He then asked: 'Where is 
his rubber ? ' She answered : ' It is ready for you.' Whereupon he 
said: 'You lie,' and lifting up his gun, shot her dead. Shortly after- 
ward the husband returned and was told of the murder of his wife. 
He went straight to the corporal, taking with him his rubber, and 
asked why he had shot his wife. The wretched man then raised his 
gun and killed the corporal. The soldiers ran away to the head- 
quarters of the State, and made representations of the case, with the 
result that the Commissary sent a large force to support the authority 
of the soldiers; the town was looted, burned, and many people were 
killed and wounded." 

Again : 

"In November last (1894) there was heavy righting on the Bosira, 
because the people refused to give rubber, and I was told upon the 
authority of a State officer that no less than eighteen hundred people 
were killed. Upon another occasion in the same month some 
soldiers ran away from a State steamer, and, it was said, went to the 
town of Bombumba. The officer sent a message telling the chief of 
the town to give them up. He answered that he could not, as the 
fugitives had not been in his town. The officer sent the messenger a 
second time with the order: 'Come to me at once, or war in the 



FIRST FRUITS OF THE SYSTEM 33 

morning.' The next morning the old chief went to meet the Belgians, 
and was attacked without provocation. He himself was wounded, 
his wife was killed before his eyes, and her head cut off in order that 
they might possess the brass necklet that she wore. Twenty-four of 
the chief's people were also killed, and all for the paltry reason 
given above. Again the people of Lake Mantumba ran away on 
account of the cruelty of the State, and the latter sent some soldiers 
in charge of a coloured corporal to treat with them and induce them 
to return. On the way the troops met a canoe containing seven of 
the fugitives. Under some paltry pretext they made the people land, 
shot them, cut off their hands and took them to the Commissary. 
The Mantumba people complained to the missionary at Irebu, and 
he went down to see if the story was true. He ascertained the case 
to be just as they had narrated, and found that one of the seven was 
a little girl, who was not quite dead. The child recovered, and 
she lives to-day, the stump of the handless arm witnessing against this 
horrible practice. These are only a few things of many that have 
taken place in one district." 

It was not merely for rubber that these horrors were done. Much 
of the country is unsuited to rubber, and in those parts there were 
other imposts which were collected with equal brutality. One village 
had to send food and was remiss one day in supplying it: 

"The people were quietly sleeping in their beds when they heard 
a shot fired, and ran out to see what was the matter. Finding the 
soldiers had surrounded the town, their only thought was escape. 
As they raced out of their homes, men, women and children, they 
were ruthlessly shot down. Their town was utterly destroyed, and 
is a ruin to this day. The only reason for this fight was that the 
people had failed to bring Kwanga (food) to the State upon that 
one day." 

Finally Mr. Murphy says: "The rubber question is account- 
able for most of the horrors perpetrated in the Congo. It has reduced 
the people to a state of utter despair. Each town in the district is 
forced to bring a certain quantity to the headquarters of the Com- 
missary every Sunday. It is collected by force; the soldiers drive 
the people into the bush; if they will not go they are shot down, 
their left hands being cut off and taken as trophies to the Commissary. 
The soldiers do not care whom they shoot down, and they most often 
shoot poor, helpless women and harmless children. These hands 



34 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

— the hands of men, women and children — are placed in rows before 
the Commissary, who counts them to see the soldiers have not wasted 
the cartridges. The Commissary is paid a commission of about a 
penny per pound upon all the rubber he gets; it is, therefore, to his 
interest to get as much as he can." 

Here is corroboration and amplification of all that Mr. Glaves 
had put forward. The system had not been long established, and 
was more efficient ten or twelve years later, but already it was bearing 
some notable first fruits of civilization. King Leopold's rule cannot 
be said to have left the country unchanged. There is ample evidence 
that mutilations of this sort were unknown among the native savages. 
Knowledge was spreading under European rule. 

Having heard the testimony of an English traveller and of an 
American missionary, let us now hear that of a Swedish clergyman, 
Mr. Sjoblom, as detailed in The Aborigines 1 Friend, July, 1897. It 
covers much the same time as the other two, and is drawn from the 
Equateur district. Here is the system in full swing: 

"They refuse to bring the rubber. Then war is declared. The 
soldiers are sent in different directions. The people in the towns are 
attacked, and when they are running away into the forest, and try 
to hide themselves, and save their lives, they are found out by the 
soldiers. Then their gardens of rice are destroyed, and their supplies 
taken. Their plantains are cut down while they are young and not 
in fruit, and often their huts are burned, and, of course, everything 
of value is taken. Within my own knowledge forty-five villages were 
altogether burned down. I say altogether, because there were many 
others partly burned down. I passed through twenty-eight aban- 
doned villages. The natives had left their places to go further inland. 
In order to separate themselves from the white men they go part of 
the way down the river, or else they cross the river into French 
territory. Sometimes, the natives are obliged to pay a large indem- 
nity. The chiefs often have to pay with brass wire and slaves, and 
if the slaves do not make up the amount their wives are sold to pay. 
I was told that by a Belgian officer. I will give you," Mr. Sjoblom 
continues, " an instance of a man I saw shot right before my eyes. In 
one of my inland journeys, when I had gone a little farther, perhaps, 
than the Commissary expected me to go, I saw something that 
perhaps he would not have liked me to see. It was at a town called 
Ibera, one of the cannibal towns to which no white man had ever 



FIRST FRUITS OF THE SYSTEM 35 

been before. I reached it at sunset, after the natives had returned 
from the various places in which they had been looking for india- 
rubber. They gathered together in a great crowd, being curious to 
see a white man. Besides, they had heard I had some good news to 
tell them, which came through the Gospel. When that large crowd 
gathered, and I was just ready to preach, the sentinels rushed in 
among them to seize an old man. They dragged him aside a little 
from the crowd, and the sentinel in charge came to me and said, ' I 
want to shoot this man, because he has been in the river fishing to-day. 
He has not been on the river for india-rubber.' I told him: 'I have 
not authority to stop you, because I have nothing to do with these 
palavers, but the people are here to hear what I have to say to them, 
and I don't want you to do it before my eyes.' He said: ' All right, I 
will keep him in bonds, then, until to-morrow morning when you have 
gone. Then I will kill him.' But a few minutes afterward the 
sentinel came in a rage to the man and shot him right before my 
eyes. Then he charged his rifle again and pointed it at the others, 
who all rushed away like chaff before the wind. He told a little boy, 
eight or nine years of age, to go and cut off the right hand of the 
man who had been shot. The man was not quite dead, and when he 
felt the knife he tried to drag his hand away. The boy, after some 
labour, cut the hand off and laid it by a fallen tree. A little later 
this hand was put on a fire to smoke before being sent to the Com- 
missary." 

Here we get the system at its highest. I think that picture of the 
child hacking off the hand of the dying man at the order of the monster 
who would have assuredly murdered him also had he hesitated to 
obey, is as diabolical a one as even the Congo could show. A pretty 
commentary upon the doctrine of Christ which the missionary was 
there to preach! 

Mr. Sjoblom seems to have been unable to believe at first that such 
deeds were done with the knowledge and approval of the whites. He 
ventured to appeal to the Commissary. " He turned in anger on me," 
he adds, " and in the presence of the soldiers said that he would expel 
me from the town if I meddled with matters of that kind any more." 

It would, indeed, have been rather absurd for the Commissary 
to interfere when the severed hand had actually been cut off in order 
to be presented to him. The whole procedure is explained in the 
following paragraph: 



36 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

" If the rubber does not reach the full amount required, the sentinels 
attack the natives. They kill some and bring the hands to the Com- 
missary. Others are brought to the Commissary as prisoners. At 
the beginning they came with their smoked hands. The sentinels, 
or else the boys in attendance on them, put these hands on a little kiln, 
and after they had been smoked, they by and by put them on the top 
of the rubber baskets. I have on many occasions seen this done." 

Then we read in the latest State papers of the Belgian diplo- 
matists that they propose to continue the beneficent and civilizing 
work which they have inherited. 

Yet another paragraph from Mr. Sjoblom showing the complicity 
of the Belgian authorities, and showing also that the presence of the 
missionaries was some deterrent against open brutality. If, then, 
they saw as much as they did, what must have been the condition 
of those huge tracts of country where no missions existed ? 

" At the end of 1895, tne Commissary — all the people were gather- 
ing the rubber — said he had often told the sentinels not to kill the 
people. But on the 14th of December a sentinel passed our mission 
station and a woman accompanied him, carrying a basket of hands. 
Mr. and Mrs. Banks, besides myself , went down the road, and they told 
the sentinel to put the hands on the road that they might count them. 
We counted eighteen right hands smoked and from the size of the 
hands we could judge that they belonged to men, women and children. 
We could not understand why these hands had been collected, as the 
Commissary had given orders that no more natives were to be killed 
for their hands. On my last journey I discovered the secret. One 
Monday night, a sentinel who had just returned from the Commissary, 
said to me : ' What are the sentinels to do ? When all the people are 
gathered together, the Commissary openly tells us not to kill any more 
people, but when the people have gone he tells us privately that if 
they do not bring plenty of india-rubber we must kill some, but not 
bring the hands to him.' Some sentinels, he told me, had been put 
in chains because they killed some natives who happened to be near a 
mission station; but it was only because he thought it might become 
known that the Commissary, to justify himself, had put the men in 
chains. I said to the sentinel : ' You should obey the first command, 
never to kill any more. , 'The people,' he answered, 'unless they are 
frightened, do not bring in the rubber, and then the Commissary 
flogs us with the hippopotamus hide, or else he puts us in chains, or 



FIRST FRUITS OF THE SYSTEM 37 

sends us to Boma.' The sentinel added that the Commissary 
induced him to hide cruelty while letting it go on, and to do this in 
such a way that he might be justified, in case it should become known 
and an investigation should be made. In such a case the Com- 
missary could say, ' Why, I told him openly not to kill any more' and 
he might put the blame on the soldier to justify himself, though the 
blame and the punishment in all its force ought to have been put on 
himself, after he had done such a terrible act in order to disguise or 
mislead justice. If the sentinels were puzzled about this message, 
what would the natives be?" 

I have said that there was more to be said for the cannibal murderers 
than for those who worked the system. The capitas pleaded the same 
excuse. " Don't take this to heart so much," said one of them to the 
missionary. "They kill us if we do not bring rubber. The Com- 
missary has promised us if we bring plenty of hands he will shorten 
our service. I have brought plenty already, and I expect my time 
will soon be finished." 

That the Commissaries are steeped to the lips in this horrible 
business has been amply shown in these paragraphs. But Mr. 
Sjoblom was able to go one stage further along the line which leads 
to the Palace at Brussels. M. Wahis, the Governor- General, a man 
who has played a sinister part in the country, came up the river and 
endeavoured to get the outspoken Swede to contradict himself, or, 
failing that, to intimidate him. To get at the truth or to right the 
wrong seems to have been the last thing in his mind, for he knew well 
that the wrong was essential to the system, and that without it the 
wheels would move more slowly and the head engineer in Europe 
would soon wish to know what was amiss with his rubber-producing 
machine. ' ' You may have seen all these things that you have stated, ' ' 
said he, "but nothing is proved." The Commissary meanwhile 
had been holding a rifle to the head of witnesses so as to make sure 
that nothing would be proved. In spite of this Mr. Sjoblom managed 
to collect his evidence, and going to the Governor, asked him when he 
could listen to it. "I don't want to hear any witnesses," said he, and 
then: "If you continue to demand investigation in these matters we 
will make a charge against you. . . . That means five years' 
imprisonment." 

Such is Mr Sjoblom's narrative involving Governor Wahis in the 
general infamy. "It is not true," cries the Congolese apologist. 



38 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

Strange how Swedes, Americans, and British, laymen and clergy, 
all unite in defaming this innocent State! No doubt the wicked chil- 
dren lop off their own hands in order to cast a slur upon "the benevo- 
lent and philanthropic enterprise of the Congo." Tartuffe and Jack 
the Ripper — was ever such a combination in the history of the world I 
One more anecdote of Mr. Wahis, for it is not often that we can 
get a Governor of the Congo in person face to face with the results 
of his own work. As he passed down the river, Mr. Sjoblom was 
able to report another outrage to him : 

"Mr. Banks told the Governor that he had seen it himself, where- 
upon M. Wahis summoned the commandant in charge — the officer 
who had ordered the raid had already gone elsewhere — and asked 
him in French if the story were true. The Belgian omcer assured 
M. Wahis that it was, but the latter, thinking Mr. Banks did not 
understand French, said : ' After all, you may have seen this ; but you 
have no witnesses.' ' Oh,' said Mr. Banks, 'I can call the command- 
ant, who has just told you that it is true.' M. Wahis then tried to 
minimize the matter, when, to his great surprise, Mr. Banks added: 
'In any case I have, at his own request, furnished to the British 
Consul, who passed through here lately, a signed statement concerning 
it.' M. Wahis rose from his chair, saying: 'Oh, then, it is all over 
Europe!' Then for the first time he said that the responsible Com- 
missary must be punished." 

It need not be added that the punishment was the merest farce. 

These successive reports, each amplifying the other, coming on the 
top of the killing of Mr. Stokes, and the action of the British Colonial 
Office in prohibiting recruiting for Congoland, had the effect of calling 
strong attention to the condition of that country. The charges were 
met partly by denial, partly by general phrases about morality, and 
partly by bogus reform. M. van Eetvelde, in Brussels, and M. Jules 
Houdret, in London, denied things which have since been proved up 
to the hilt. The reform took the shape of a so-called Natives' Pro- 
tection Commission. Like all these so-called reforms, it was utterly 
ineffectual, and was only meant for European consumption. No one 
knew so well as the men at Brussels that no possible reform could have 
any effect whatever unless the system was itself abolished, for that 
system produced outrages as logically and certainly as frost produces 
ice. The sequel will show the results of the Natives' Protection 
Commission. 



FURTHER FRUITS OF THE SYSTEM 

FOR a moment I must interrupt the narrative of the long, dismal 
succession of atrocities in order to explain certain new factors 
in the situation. 

It has already been shown that the Congo State, unable to handle 
the whole of its vast domain, had sublet large tracts of it to monopolist 
companies, in absolute contradiction to Article V. of the Berlin Treaty. 
Up to the year 1897, these companies were registered in Belgium, 
and had some pretence to being international in scope. The State 
had no open or direct control over them. This was now altered. The 
State drew closer the bonds which united it to these commercial under- 
takings. They were, for the most part, dissolved, and then recon- 
structed under Congo law. In most cases, in return for the monopoly, 
the State was given control, sometimes to the extent of appointing 
all managers and agents. Half the shares of the company or half the 
profits were usually made over to the State. Thus one must bear in 
mind in future that whether one talks of the Abir Company, of the 
Kasai, the Katanga, the Anversoise, or any other, it is really with the 
State — that is, with King Leopold — that one has to do. He owned 
the companies, but paid them fifty per cent, commission for doing all 
the work. As their profits were such as might be expected where 
nothing was paid either for produce or for labour (varying from fifty 
to seven hundred per cent, per annum), all parties to the bargain 
were the gainers. 

Another new factor in the situation was the completion, in 1898, 
of the Lower Congo Railway, which connects Boma with Stanley 
Pool, and so outflanks the cataracts. The enterprise itself was 
beneficent and splendid. The means by which it was carried out were 
unscrupulous and inhuman. Had civilization no complaint against 
the Congo State save the history of its railway construction with its 
forced labour, so different to the tradition of the tropical procedure 
of other European colonies, it would be a heavy indictment. Now 

39 



40 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

it sinks to insignificance when compared with the enslavement of a 
whole people and the twenty years of uninterrupted massacre. As a 
sketch of the condition of the railway district here is a little pen picture 
by M. Edouard Picard, of the Belgian Senate, who saw it in the 
building: 

"The cruel impression conveyed by the mutilated forests/' he wrote, 
"is heightened in the places where, till lately, native villages nestled, 
hidden and protected by thick and lofty foliage. The inhabitants 
have fled. They have fled in spite of encouraging palavers and 
promises of peace and kind treatment. They have burnt their huts, 
and great heaps of cinders mark the sites, amid deserted palm-groves 
and trampled- down banana fields. The terrors caused by the memory 
of inhuman floggings, of massacres, of rapes and abductions, haunt 
their poor brains, and they go as fugitives to seek shelter in the recesses 
of the hospitable bush, or, across the frontiers, to find it in French 
or Portuguese Congo, not yet afflicted with so many labours and 
alarms, far from the roads traversed by white men, those baneful 
intruders, and their train of strange and disquieting habits." The 
outlook was as gloomy when he wandered along the path trodden by 
the caravans to the Pool and back again. "We are constantly meet- 
ing these carriers, either isolated or in Indian file; blacks, blacks, 
miserable blacks, with horribly filthy loin- clothes for their only gar- 
ments ; their bare and frizzled heads supporting their loads — chest, 
bale, ivory-tusk, hamper of rubber, or barrel ; for the most part broken 
down, sinking under the burdens made heavier by their weariness and 
insufficiency of food, consisting of a handful of rice and tainted dried 
fish ; pitiful walking caryatids ; beasts of burden with the lank limbs 
of monkeys, pinched-up features, eyes fixed and round with the 
strain of keeping their balance and the dulness of exhaustion. Thus 
they come and go by thousands, organized in a system of human trans- 
port, requisitioned by the State armed with its irresistible jorce pub- 
lique, supplied by the chiefs whose slaves they are and who pounce 
on their wages ; jogging on, with knees bent and stomach protruding, 
one arm raised up and the other resting on a long stick, dusty and 
malodorous ; covered with insects as their huge procession passes over 
mountains and through valleys; dying on the tramp, or, when the 
tramp is over, going to their villages to die of exhaustion." 

It will be remembered that Captain Lothaire, having been acquitted 
of the murder of Mr. Stokes, was sent out by King Leopold to act as 



FURTHER FRUITS OF THE SYSTEM 41 

managing- director of the Anversoise Trust. In 1898, he arrived in the 
Mongalla District, and from then onward there came to Europe 
vague rumours of native attacks and bloody reprisals, with those other 
symptoms of violence and unrest which might be expected where a 
large population accustomed to freedom is suddenly reduced to 
slavery. How huge were the rubber operations which were carried 
through under the ferocious rule of Captain Lothaire, may be guessed 
from the fact that the profits of the company, which had been 120,000 
francs in 1897, rose to 3,968,000 in 1899 — a sum which is con- 
siderably more than twice the total capital. M. Mille tells of a 
Belgian agent who showed 25,000 cartridges and remarked, "I 
can turn those into 25,000 pounds of rubber." Captain Lothaire 
believed in the same trade methods, for his fighting and his 
output increased together. It is worth while to slaughter one- 
fourth of the population if the effect is to drive the others to 
frenzied and unceasing work. 

No definite details might ever have reached Europe of those doings 
had not Lothaire made the capital mistake of quarrelling with his 
subordinates. One of these, named Lacroix, sent a communication 
to the Nieuw Gazet, of Antwerp, which, with the Petit Bleu, acted 
an honourable and independent part at this epoch. The Congo 
Press Bureau, which has stifled the voice of the more venal portion 
of the Belgian and Parisian Press, had not at that time attained the 
efficiency which it afterward reached. This letter from Lacroix 
was published on April 10th, 1900, and shed a lurid light upon what 
had been going on in the Mongalla District. It was a confession, but 
a confession which involved his superiors as well as himself. He 
told how he had been instructed by his chief to massacre all the 
natives of a certain village which had been slow in bringing its rubber. 
He had carried out the order. Later, his chief had put sixty women 
in irons, and allowed nearly all of them to die of hunger because the 
village — Mummumbula — had not brought enough rubber. "I 
am going to be tried," he wrote, "for having murdered one hundred 
and fifty men, for having crucified women and children, and for hav- 
ing mutilated many men and hung the remains on the village fence." 
At the same moment as this confession of Lacroix, Le Petit Bleu pub- 
lished sworn affidavits of soldiers employed by the Trust, telling how 
they had put to death whole villages for being short with their rubber. 
Moray, another agent, published a confession in Le Petit Bleu, from 
which this is an extract; 



42 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

"At Ambas we were a party of thirty, under Van Eycken, who 
sent us into a village to ascertain if the natives were collecting rubber, 
and in the contrary case to murder all, including men, women and 
children. We found the natives sitting peaceably. We asked them 
what they were doing. They were unable to reply, thereupon we 
fell upon them all, and killed them without mercy. An hour later we 
were joined by Van Eycken, and told him what had been done. He 
answered: 'It is well, but you have not done enough !' Thereupon 
he ordered us to cut off the heads of the men and hang them on 
the village palisades, also their sexual members, and to hang the 
women and children on the palisades in the form of a cross.' ' 

In the face of these fresh revelations there was an outburst of feeling 
in Belgium, showing that it is only their ignorance of the true facts 
which prevents the inhabitants of that country from showing the same 
humanity as any other civilized nation would do. They have not 
yet realized the foul things which have been done in their name. 
Surely when they do realize it there will be a terrible reckoning! 
Some were already very alive to the question. MM. Vandervelde 
and Lorand fought bravely in the Chamber. The officials, with MM. 
Liebrichts and De Cuvelier at their head, made the usual vague profes- 
sions and general denials. "Ah, you can rest assured light will be 
forthcoming, complete, striking! " cried the former. Light was indeed 
forthcoming, though not so complete as might be wished, for some, 
at least, of the scoundrels implicated were tried and condemned. 
In any other European colony they would have been hanged offhand, 
as the villainous murderers that they were. But they do not hang 
white men in the Congoland, even with the blood of a hundred mur- 
ders on their hands. The only white man ever hanged there was 
the Englishman Stokes for competing in trade. 

What is to be remarked, however, is that only subordinates were 
punished. Van Eycken was acquitted; Lacroix had imprisonment; 
Mattheys, another agent accused of horrible practices, got twelve 
years — which sounded well at the time, but he was liberated at the 
end of three. In the sentence upon this man the Judge used the 
words, " Seeing that it is just to take into account the example which 
his superiors gave him in showing no respect for the lives or rights of 
the natives." Brave words, but how helpless is justice when such 
words can be said, and no result follow! They referred, of course, to 
Captain Lothaire, who had, in the meanwhile, fled aboard a steamer 



FURTHER FRUITS OF THE SYSTEM 43 

at Matadi, and made his escape to Europe. His flight was common 
knowledge, but who would dare to lay his hand upon the favourite 
of the King. Lothaire has had occasion several times since to visit 
the Congo, but Justice has indeed sat with bandaged eyes where that 
man was concerned! 

There is one incident which should be marked in the story of this 
trial. Moray, whose testimony would have been of great importance, 
was found dead in his bed just before the proceedings. There have 
been several such happenings in Congo history. Commandant 
Dooms, having threatened to expose the misdeeds of Lieutenant 
Massard before Europe, was shortly afterward declared to have 
been mysteriously drowned by a hippopotamus. Dr. Barotti, 
returning hot with anger after an inspection of the State, declares 
vehemently that he was poisoned. There is much that is of the 
sixteenth century in this State, besides its views of its duties to the 
natives. . 

Before passing these revelations with the attendant burst of can- 
dour in the Belgian Press, it may be well to transcribe the following 
remark in an interview from a returned Congo official which appeared 
in the Antwerp Nieuw Gazet (April 10th, 1900). He says: 

"When first commissioned to establish a fort, I was given some 
native soldiers and a prodigious stock of ammunition. My chief gave 
me the following instructions: ' Crush every obstacle!' I obeyed, 
and cut through my district by fire and sword. I had left Antwerp 
thinking I was simply to gather rubber. Great was my stupefaction 
when the truth dawned on me." 

This, with the letter of Lieutenant Tilken, as quoted before, gives 
some insight into the position of the agent. 

Indeed, there is something to be said for these unfortunate men, 
for it is a more awful thing to be driven to crime than to endure it. 
Consider the sequence of events! The man sees an advertisement 
offering a commercial situation in the tropics. He applies to a bureau. 
He is told that the salary is some seventy-five pounds a year, with a 
bonus on results. He knows nothing of the country or conditions. 
He accepts. He is then asked if he has any money. He has not. 
One hundred pounds is advanced to him for expenses and outfit, and 
he is pledged to work it off. He goes out and finds the terrible nature 
of the task before him. He must condone crime to get his results. 
Suppose he resigns? "Certainly," say the authorities; "but 



44 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

you must remain there until you have worked off your debt!" He 
cannot possibly get down the river, for the steamers are all under 
Government control. What can he do then? There is one thing 
which he very frequently does, and that is to blow out his brains. 
The statistics of suicide are higher than in any service in the world. 
But suppose he takes the line: "Very well, I will stay if you make 
me do so, but I will expose these misdeeds to Europe." What then? 
The routine is a simple one. An official charge is preferred against 
him of ill-treating the natives. Ill-treating of some sort is always 
going forward, and there is no difficulty with the help of the sentries 
in proving that something for which the agent is responsible does not 
tally with the written law, however much it might be the recognized 
custom. He is taken to Boma, tried and condemned. Thus it comes 
about that the prison of Boma may at the same time contain the best 
men and the worst — the men whose ideas were too humane for the 
authorities as well as those whose crimes could not be overlooked even 
by a Congolese administration. Take warning, you who seek service 
in this dark country, for suicide, the Boma prison, or such deeds as 
will poison your memory forever are the only choice which will lie 
before you. 

Here is the sort of official circular which descends in its thousands 
upon the agent. This particular one was from the Commissioner in 
the Wille district: 

"I give you carte blanche to procure 4,000 kilos of rubber a month. 
You have two months in which to work your people. Employ gentle- 
ness at first, and if they persist in resisting the demands of the State, 
employ force of arms." 

And this State was formed for the "moral and material advantage 
of the native." 

While dealing with trials of Boma I will give some short account 
of the Caudron case, which occurred in 1904. This case was remark- 
able as establishing judicially what was always clear enough: the 
complicity between the State and the criminal. Caudron was a 
man against whom 120 cold-blooded murders were charged. He 
was, in fact, a zealous and efficient agent of the Anversoise Society, 
that same company whose red-edged securities rose to such a height 
when Manager Lothaire taught the natives what a minister in the 
Belgian House described as the Christian law of work. He did his 
best for the company, and he did his best for himself , for he had a three 



FURTHER FRUITS OF THE SYSTEM 45 

per cent, commission upon the rubber. Why he should be chosen 
among all his fellow-murderers is hard to explain, but it was so, and 
he found himself at Boma with a sentence of twenty years. On 
appealing, this was reduced to fifteen years, which experience has 
shown to mean in practice two or three. The interesting point of his 
trial, however, is that his appeal, and the consequent decrease of 
sentence which justified that appeal, were based upon the claim that 
the Government was cognisant of the murderous raids, and that the 
Government soldiers were used to effect them. The points brought 
out by the trial were: 

1. The existence of a system of organized oppression, plunder* 
and massacre, in order to increase the output of india-rubber for 
the benefit of a "company," which is only a covering name for the 
Government itself. 

2. That the local authorities of the Government are cognisant, 
and participatory in this system. 

3. That local officials of the Government engage in these 
rubber raids, and that Government troops are regularly employed 
there on. 

4. That the Judicature is powerless to place the real respon- 
sibility on the proper shoulders. 

5. That, consequently, these atrocities will continue until the 
system itself is extirpated. 

Caudron's counsel called for the production of official documents 
to show how the chain of responsibility went, but the President of 
the Appeal Court refused it, knowing as clearly as we do, that it 
could only conduct to the Throne itself. 

One might ask how the details of this trial came to Europe when 
it is so seldom that anything leaks out from the Courts of Boma. 
The reason was that there lived in Boma a British coloured subject 
named Shanir, who was at the pains to attend the court day by day 
in order to preserve some record of the procedure. This he dispatched 
to Europe. The sequel is interesting. The man's trade, which was 
a very large one, was boycotted, he lost his all, brooded over his 
misfortunes, and finally took his own life — another martyr in the 
cause of the Congo. 



VI 

VOICES FROM THE DARKNESS 

I WILL now return to the witnesses of the shocking treatment of 
the natives. Rev. Joseph Clark was an American missionary 
living at Ikoko in the Crown Domain, which is King Leopold's 
own special private preserve. These letters cover the space between 
1893 and 1899. 
This is Ikoko as he found it in 1893 : 

"Irebo contains say 2,000 people. Ikoko has at least 4,000 
and there are other towns within easy reach, several as large as Irebo, 
and two probably as large as Ikoko. The people are fine-looking, 
bold and active." 

In 1903 there were 600 people surviving. 

In 1894 Ikoko in the Crown Domain began to feel the effects of 
"moral and material regeneration." On May 30th of that year 
Mr. Clark writes: 

"Owing to trouble with the State the Irebo people fled and left 
their homes. Yesterday the State soldiers shot a sick man who had 
not attempted to run away, and others have been killed by the State 
(native) soldiers, who, in the absence of a white man, do as they 
please." 

In November, 1894: 

"At Ikoko quite a number of people have been killed by the 
soldiers, and most of the others are living in the bush." 

In the same month he complained officially to Commissaire Fievez : 

"If you do not come soon and stop the present trouble the towns 
will be empty. ... I entreat you to help us to have peace on 
the Lake. ... It seems so hard to see the dead bodies in the 
creek and on the beach, and to know why they are killed. . . . 
People are living in the bush like wild beasts without shelter or 
proper food, and afraid to make fires. Many died in this way. One 

46 



VOICES FROM THE DARKNESS 47 

woman ran away with three children — they all died in the forest, 
and the woman herself came back a wreck and died before long — 
ruined by exposure and starvation. We knew her well. My hope 
in 1894 was to get the facts put before King Leopold, as I was sure 
he knew nothing of the awful conditions of the collection of the so- 
called ' rubber tax.' " 

On November 28th he writes: 

"The State soldiers brought in seven hands, and reported having 
shot the people in the act of running away to the French side, etc." 

"We found all that the soldiers had reported was untrue, and that 
the statements made by the natives to me were true. We saw only 
six bodies; a seventh had evidently fallen into the water, and we 
learned in a day or two that an eighth body had floated into the landing- 
place above us — a woman that had either been thrown or had 
fallen into the water after being shot." 

On December 5th, he says: 

"A year ago we passed or visited between here and Ikoko the 
following villages: 

Probable population 

Lobwaka 250 

Boboko 250 

Bosungu 100 

Kenzie 150 

Bokaka 200 

Mosenge 150 

Ituta 80 

Ngero 2,000 

Total 3,180 

"A week ago I went up, and only at Ngero were there any people: 
there we found ten. Ikoko did not contain over twelve people other 
than those employed by Frank. Beyond Ikoko the case is the same." 

April 12th, 1895, ne writes: 

"I am sorry that rubber palavers continue. Every week we hear 
of some fighting, and there are frequent 'rows/ even in our village, 



48 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

with the armed and unruly soldiers. . . . During the past 
twelve months it has cost more lives than native wars and superstition 
would have sacrificed in three to five years. The people make this 
comparison among themselves. ... It seems incredible and 
awful to think of these savage men armed with rifles and let loose 
to hunt and kill people, because they do not get rubber to sell at a 
mere nothing to the State, and it is blood-curdling to see them returning 
with hands of the slain and to find the hands oj young children, amongst 
bigger ones, evidencing their 'bravery.' " 

The following was written on May 3rd, 1895: 

"The war on account of rubber. The State demands that the 
natives shall make rubber and sell same to its agents at a very low 
price. The natives do not like it. It is hard work and very poor 
pay, and takes them away from their homes into the forest, where 
they feel very unsafe, as there are always feuds among them. . . . 
The rubber from this district has cost hundreds of lives, and the 
scenes I have witnessed while unable to help the oppressed have 
been almost enough to make me wish I were dead. The soldiers, 
are themselves savages, some even cannibals, trained to use rifles 
and in many cases they are sent away without supervision, and they 
do as they please. When they come to any town no man's property 
or wife is safe, and when they are at war they are like devils. 

"Imagine them returning from fighting some 'rebels'; see, on the 
bow oj the canoe is a pole and a bundle oj something on it. . . . 
These are the hands (right hands) oj sixteen warriors they have slain. 
1 Warriors! ' Don't you see among them the hands oj little children and 
girls (young girls or boys) ? I have seen them. I have seen where 
even the trophy has been cut of while yet the poor heart beat strongly 
enough to shoot the blood jrom the cut arteries to a distance oj jully 
jour feet" 

"A young baby was brought here one time; its mother was taken 
prisoner, and before her eyes they threw the infant in the water to 
drown it. The soldiers coolly told me and my wife that their white 
man did not want them to bring infants to their place. They dragged 
the women off and left the infant beside us, but we sent the child to 
its mother, and said we would report the matter to the chief of the 
post. We did so, but the men were not punished. The principal 
offender was told before me he would get fifty lashes, but I heard the 
same mouth send a message to say he would not be flogged. " 



VOICES FROM THE DARKNESS 49 

Compare with this the following extracts from King Leopold's 
Officiel Bulletin, referring to this very tract of country: 

"The exploitation of the rubber vines of this district was under- 
taken barely three years ago by M. Fievez. The results he obtained 
have been unequalled. The district produced in 1895 more than 
650 tons of rubber, bought (sic) for 2 J d. (European price), and sold 
at Antwerp for 55. 5^. per kilo (2 lbs.)." 

A later bulletin adds : 

"With this development of general order is combined an inevitable 
amelioration in the native's condition of existence wherever he comes 
into contact with the European element. . . . 

" Such is, in fact, one of the ends of the general policy of the State, 
to promote the regeneration 0} the race by instilling into him a higher 
idea oj the necessity of labour." 

Truly, I know nothing in history to match such documents as 
these — pirates and bandits have never descended to that last odious 
abyss of hypocrisy. It stands alone, colossal in its horror, colossal, 
too, in its effrontery. 

A few more anecdotes from the worthy Mr. Clark. This is an 
extract from a letter to the Chief of the District, Mueller: 

"There is a matter I want to report to you regarding the Nkake 
sentries. You remember some time ago they took eleven canoes 
and shot some Ikoko people. As a proof they went to you with 
some hands, of which three were the hands of little children. We 
heard from one of their paddlers that one child was not dead when 
its hand was cut off, but did not believe the story. Three days 
after we were told the child was still alive in the bush. I sent four 
of my men to see, and they brought back a little girl whose right 
hand had been cut off, and she left to die from the wound. The 
child had no other wound. As I was going to see Dr. Reusens 
about my own sickness I took the child to him, and he has cut the 
arm and made it right and I think she will live. But I think such 
awful cruelty should be punished." 

Mr. Clark still clung to the hope that King Leopold did not know 
of the results of his own system. On March 25th, 1896, he writes: 

" This rubber traffic is steeped in blood, and ij the natives were to 
rise and sweep every white person on the upper Congo into eternity 



5© THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

there would still be left a fearful balance to their credit. Is it not 
possible for some American of influence to see the King of the Bel- 
gians, and let him know what is being done in his name? The 
Lake is reserved for the King — no traders allowed — and to collect 
rubber for him hundreds of men, women and children have been shot" 

At last the natives, goaded beyond endurance, rose against their 
oppressors. Who can help rejoicing that they seem to have had 
some success? 

Extracts from letter-book commencing January 2gth, 1897: 

"The native uprising. This was brought about at last by sentries 
robbing and badly treating an important chief. In my presence 
he laid his complaint before M. Mueller, reporting the seizure of his 
wives and goods and the personal violence he had suffered at the 
hands of M. Mueller's soldiers stationed in his town. I saw M. 
Mueller kick him off his veranda. Within forty-eight hours there 
were no ' sentries' or their followers left in that chief's town — they 
were killed and mutilated — and soon after M. Mueller, with another 
white officer and many soldiers, were killed, and the revolt began." 

Such is some of the evidence, a very small portion of the whole 
narrative furnished by Mr. Clark. Remember that it is extracted 
from a long series of letters written to various people during a suc- 
cession of years. One could conceive a single statement being 
a concoction, but the most ingenious apologist for the Congo methods 
could not explain how such a document as this could be other 
than true. 

So much for Mr. Clark, the American. The evidence of Mr. 
Scrivener, the Englishman, covering roughly the same place and 
date, will follow. But lest the view should seem too Anglo-Saxon, 
let me interpolate a paragraph from the travels of a Frenchman, M. 
Leon Berthier, whose diary was published by the Colonial Institute 
of Marseilles in 1902: 

"Belgian post of Imesse well constructed. The Chef de Poste 
is absent. He has gone to punish the village of M'Batchi, guilty 
of being a little late in paying the rubber tax. ... A canoe 
full of Congo State soldiers returns from the pillage of M'Bat- 
chi. . . . Thirty killed, fifty wounded. ... At three o'clock 
arrive at M'Batchi, the scene of the bloody punishment of the Chef 
de Poste at Imesse. Poor village! The debris of miserable 



VOICES FROM THE DARKNESS 51 

huts. . . . One goes away humiliated and saddened from these 
scenes of desolation, filled with indescribable feelings.' ! 

In showing the continuity of the Congo horror and the extent 
of its duration (an extent which is the shame of the great Powers 
who acquiesced in it by their silence), I have marshalled witnesses 
in their successive order. Messrs. Glave, Murphy and Sjoblom 
have covered the time from 1894 to 1897; Mr. Clark has carried 
it on to 1900; we have had the deeds of 190 1-4 as revealed in the 
Boma Law Courts. I shall now give the experience of Rev. Mr. 
Scrivener, and English missionary, who in July, August and Septem- 
ber, 1903, traversed a section of the Crown Domain, that same 
region specially assigned to King Leopold in person, in which Mr. 
Clark had spent so many nightmare years. We shall see how far 
the independent testimony of the Englishman and the American, 
the one extracted from a diary, the other from a succession of letters, 
corroborate each other: 

"At six in the morning woke up to find it still raining. It kept 
on till nine, and we managed to get off by eleven. All the cassava 
bread was finished the day previous, so a little rice was cooked, but 
it was a hungry crowd that left the little village. I tried to find out 
something about them. They said they were runaways from a 
district a little distance away, where rubber was being collected. 
They told us some horrible tales of murder and starvation, and when 
we heard all we wondered that men so maltreated should be able 
to live without retaliation. The boys and girls were naked, and I 
gave them each a strip of calico, much to their wonderment. . . . 

"Four hours and a half brought us to a place called Sa. . . . 
On the way we passed two villages with more people than we had 
seen for days. There may have been 120. Close to the post was 
another small village. We decided to stay there the rest of the day. 
Three chiefs came in with all the adult members of their people, 
and altogether there were not 300. And this where, not more than 
six or seven years ago, there were at least 3,000! It made one's 
heart heavy to listen to the tales of bloodshed and cruelty. And it 
all seemed so foolish. To kill the people off in the wholesale way 
in which it has been done in this Lake district, because they would 
not bring in a sufficient quantity of rubber to satisfy the white man 
— and now here is an empty country and a very much diminished 
output of rubber as the inevitable consequence. ..." 



52 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

Finally Mr. Scrivener emerged in the neighbourhood of a "big 
State station." He was hospitably received, and had many chats 
with his host, who seems to have been a very decent sort of man, 
doing his best under very trying circumstances. His predecessor 
had worked incalculable havoc in the country, and the present 
occupant of the post was endeavouring to carry out the duties assigned 
to him (those duties consisting, as usual, of orders to get all the 
rubber possible out of the people) with as much humanity as the 
nature of the task permitted. In this he, no doubt, did what was 
possible as one whom the system had not yet degraded to its level 
— one of the rare few: and one cannot wonder that they should 
be rare, seeing the nature of the bonds, and the helplessness in which 
an official is placed who does not carry out the full desires of his 
superiors. But he had only succeeded in getting himself into trouble 
with the district commander in consequence. He showed Mr. 
Scrivener a letter from the latter upbraiding him for not using more 
vigorous means, telling him to talk less and shoot more, and repri- 
manding him for not killing more than one man in a district under 
his care where there was a little trouble. 

Mr. Scrivener had the opportunity while at this State post, under 
the regime of a man who was endeavouring to be as humane as his 
instructions allowed, to actually see the process whereby the secret 
revenues of the "Crown Domain" are obtained. He says: 

"Everything was on a military basis, but, so far as I could see, 
the one and only reason for it all was rubber. It was the theme of 
every conversation, and it was evident that the only way to please 
one's superiors was to increase the output somehow. I saw a few 
men come in, and the frightened look even now on their faces tells 
only too eloquently of the awful time they have passed through. 
As I saw it brought in, each man had a little basket, containing, say, 
four or five pounds of rubber. This was emptied into a larger basket 
and weighed, and being found sufficient, each man was given a cup- 
ful of coarse salt, and to some of the head-men a fathom of calico. 
. . . I heard from the white men and some of the soldiers some 
most gruesome stories. The former white man (I feel ashamed of 
my colour every time I think of him) would stand at the door of 
the store to receive the rubber from the poor trembling wretches, 
who after, in some cases, weeks of privation in the forest, had ven- 
tured in with what they had been able to collect. A man bringing 



VOICES FROM THE DARKNESS 53 

rather under the proper amount, the white man flies into a rage, and 
seizing a rifle from one of the guards, shoots him dead on the spot. 
Very rarely did rubber come in but one or more were shot in that 
way at the door of the store — 'to make the survivors bring more 
next time.' Men who had tried to run from the country and had 
been caught, were brought to the station and made to stand one 
behind the other, and an Albini bullet sent through them. 'A pity 
to waste cartridges on such wretches.' Only the roads to and fro 
from the various posts are kept open, and large tracts of country are 
abandoned to the wild beasts. The white man himself told me that 
you could walk on for five days in one direction, and not see a single 
village or a single human being. And this where formerly there 
was a big tribe! . . . 

"As one by one the surviving relatives of my men arrived, some 
affecting scenes were enacted. There was no falling on necks and 
weeping, but very genuine joy was shown and tears were shed as the 
losses death had made were told. How they shook hands and 
snapped their fingers! What expressions of surprise — the wide- 
opened mouth covered with the open hand to make its evidence of 
wonder the more apparent. ... So far as the State post was 
concerned, it was in a very dilapidated condition. . . . On three 
sides of the usual huge quadrangle there were abundant signs of a 
former population, but we only found three villages — bigger, 
indeed, than any we had seen before, but sadly diminished from 
what had been but recently the condition of the place. . . . Soon 
we began talking, and, without any encouragement on my part, 
they began the tales I had become so accustomed to. They were 
living in peace and quietness when the white men came in from 
the Lake with all sorts of requests to do this and to do that, and they 
thought it meant slavery. So they attempted to keep the white men 
out of their country, but without avail. The rifles were too much 
for them. 3o they submitted, and made up their minds to do the 
best they could under the altered circumstances. First came the 
command to build houses for the soldiers, and this was done without 
a murmur. Then they had to feed the soldiers, and all the men 
and women — hangers-on — who accompanied them. 

' Then they were told to bring in rubber. This was quite a new 
thing for them to do. There was rubber in the forest several days 
away from their home, but that it was worth anything was news 
to them. A small reward was offered, and a rush was made for the 



54 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

rubber; 'What strange white men, to give us cloth and beads for 
the sap of a wild vine.' They rejoiced in what they thought was 
their good fortune. But soon the reward was reduced until they 
were told to bring in the rubber for nothing. To this they tried to 
demur, but to their great surprise several were shot by the soldiers, 
and the rest were told, with many curses and blows, to go at once 
or more would be killed. Terrified, they began to prepare their 
food for the fortnight's absence from the village, which the collection 
of the rubber entailed. The soldiers discovered them sitting about. 
'What, not gone yet?' Bang! bang! bang! bang! And down 
fell one and another, dead, in the midst of wives and companions. 
There is a terrible wail, and an attempt made to prepare the dead for 
burial, but this is not allowed. All must go at once to the forest. 
And off the poor wretches had to go, without even their tinder- 
boxes to make fires. Many died in the forests from exposure and 
hunger, and still more from the rifles of the ferocious soldiers in 
charge of the post. In spite of all their efforts, the amount fell off, 
and more and more were killed. . . . 

" I was shown around the place, and the sites of former big chiefs' 
settlements were pointed out. A careful estimate made the popu- 
lation, of say, seven years ago, to be 2,000 people in and about the 
post, within a radius of, say a quarter of a mile. All told, they would 
not muster 200 now, and there is so much sadness and gloom that they 
are fast decreasing. . . . Lying about in the grass, within a 
few yards of the house I was occupying, were numbers of human 
bones, in some cases complete skeletons. I counted thirty-six 
skulls, and saw many sets of bones from which the skulls were missing. 
I called one of the men, and asked the meaning of it. 'When the 
rubber palaver began,' said he, ' the soldiers shot so many we grew 
tired of burying, and very often we were not allowed to bury, and so 
just dragged the bodies out into the grass and left them. There are 
hundreds all round if you would like to see them. ' But I had seen 
more than enough, and was sickened by the stories that came from 
men and women alike of the awful time they had passed through. 
The Bulgarian atrocities might be considered as mildness itself when 
compared with what has been done here. . . . 

"In due course we reached Ibali. There was hardly a sound 
building in the place. . . . Why such dilapidation? The 
Commandant away for a trip likely to extend into three months, 
the sub-lieutenant away in another direction on a punitive expedition. 



VOICES FROM THE DARKNESS 55 

In other words, the station must be neglected, and rubber-hunting 
carried out with all vigour. I stayed here two days, and the one thing 
that impressed itself upon me was the collection of rubber. I saw 
long files of men come, as at Mbongo, with their little baskets under 
their arms, saw them paid their milk-tin full of salt, and the two yards 
of calico flung to the head-men; saw their trembling timidity, and, in 
fact, a great deal more, to prove the state of terrorism that exists, and 
the virtual slavery in which the people are held. . . . 

"So much for the journey to the Lake. It has enlarged my 
knowledge of the country, and also, alas! my knowledge of the awful 
deeds enacted in the mad haste of men to get rich. So far as I know, 
I am the first white man to go into the Domaine Prive of the King, 
other than the employees of the State. I expect there will be wrath 
in some quarters, but that cannot be helped." 

So far Mr. Scrivener. But perhaps the reader may think that 
there really was a missionary plot to decry the Free State. Let 
us have some travellers, then. Here is Mr. Grogan from his " Cape 
to Cairo": 

"The people were terrorized and were living in marshes." This 
was on the British frontier. " The Belgians have crossed the frontier, 
descended into the valley, shot down large numbers of natives, British 
subjects, driven off the young women and cattle, and actually tied up 
and burned the old women. I do not make these statements without 
having gone into the matter. I remarked on the absence of women 
and the reason was given. It was on further inquiry that I was 
assured by the natives that white men had been present when the 
old women had been burned. . . . They even described to me 
the personal appearance of the white officers with the troops. . . . 
The wretched people came to me and asked me why the British had 
deserted them." 

Further on he says: 

" Every village had been burned to the ground, and as I fled from 
the country I saw skeletons, skeletons everywhere. And such 
postures! What tales of horror they told." 

Just a word in conclusion from another witness, Mr. Herbert Frost: 

"The power of an armed soldier among these enslaved people 
is absolutely paramount. By chief or child, every command, wish, 



56 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

or whim of the soldier must be obeyed or gratified. At his command 
with rifle ready a man will . . . outrage his own sister, give 
to his persecutor the wife he loves most of all, say or do anything, 
indeed, to save his life. The woes and sorrows of the race whom 
King Leopold has enslaved have not decreased, for his Commissaire 
officers and agents have introduced and maintain a system of deviltry 
hitherto undreamed of by his victims." 

Does this all seem horrible? But in the face of it is there not 
something more horrible in a sentence of this kind ? — 

"Our only programme, I am anxious to repeat, is the work of 
moral and material regeneration, and we must do this among a 
population whose degeneration in its inherited conditions it is difficult 
to measure. The many horrors and atrocities which disgrace human- 
ity give way little by little before our intervention. " 

It is King Leopold who speaks. 




VII 

CONSUL ROGER CASEMENT'S REPORT 

UP TO this time the published reports as to the black doings 
of King Leopold and his men were, with the exception of 
a guarded document from Consul Pickersgill, in 1898, 
entirely from private individuals. No doubt there were official 
reports but the Government withheld them. In 1904, this policy 
of reticence was abandoned, and the historic report of Consul Roger 
Casement confirmed, and in some ways amplified, all that had 
reached Europe from other sources. 

A word or two as to Mr. Casement's own personality and qualifica- 
tions may not be amiss, since both were attacked by his Belgian 
detractors. He is a tried and experienced public servant, who has 
had exceptional opportunities of knowing Africa and the natives. 
He entered the Consular Service in 1892, served on the Niger 
till 1895, was Consul at Delagoa Bay to 1898, and was finally 
transferred to the Congo. Personally, he is a man of the highest 
character, truthful, unselfish — one who is deeply respected by all 
who know him. His experience, which deals with the Crown Domain 
districts in the year 1903, covers some sixty- two pages, to be read in 
full in "White Book, Africa, No. 1, 1904." I will not apologize 
for the length of the extracts, as this, the first official exposure, was 
an historical document and from its publication we mark the first step 
in that train of events which is surely destined to remove the Congo 
State from hands which have proved so unworthy, and to place it in 
conditions which shall no longer be a disgrace to European civilization. 
It may be remarked before beginning that at some of these conver- 
sations with the natives Mr. Scrivener was present, and that he 
corroborates the account given by the Consul. 

The beginning of Mr. Casement's report shows how willing he was 
to give praise where praise was possible, and to say all that could 
be said for the Administration. He talks of "energetic European 
intervention," and adds, "that very much of this intervention has 

57 . 



58 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

been called for no one who formerly knew the Upper Congo could 
doubt." "Admirably built and admirably kept stations greet the 
traveller at many points." "To-day the railway works most effi- 
ciently." He attributes sleeping sickness as "one cause of the seem- 
ingly wholesale diminution of human life which I everywhere observed 
in the regions re- visited; a prominent place must be assigned to this 
malady. The natives certainly attribute their alarming death-rate 
to this as one of the inducing causes, although they attribute, and I 
think principally, their rapid decrease in numbers to other causes 
as well." 

The Government work shop "was brightness, care, order, and 
activity, and it was impossible not to admire and commend the 
industry which had created and maintained in constant working 
order this useful establishment." 

These are not the words of a critic who has started with a preju- 
diced mind or the desire to make out a case. 

In the lower reaches of the river above Stanley Pool Casement 
found no gross ill-usage. The natives were hopeless and listless, 
being debarred from trade and heavily taxed in food, fish and other 
produce. It was not until he began to approach the cursed rubber 
zones that terrible things began to dawn upon him. Casement 
had travelled in 1887 in the Congo, and was surprised to note the 
timidity of the natives. Soon he had his explanation: 

"At one of these village, S , after confidence had been restored 

and the fugitives had been induced to come in from the surrounding 
forest, where they had hidden themselves, I saw women coming 
back, carrying their babies, their household utensils, and even the 
food they had hastily snatched up, up to a late hour of the evening. 
Meeting some of these returning women in one of the fields I asked 
them why they had run away at my approach, and they said, smiling, 
'We thought you were Bula Matadi' (i. e., 'men of the Government'). 
Fear of this kind was formerly unknown on the Upper Congo; and 
in much more out-of-the-way places visited many years ago the 
people flocked from all sides to greet a white stranger. But to-day 
the apparition of a white man's steamer evidently gave the signal 
for instant flight." 

". . . Men, he said, still came to him whose hands had 
been cut off by the Government soldiers during those evil days, and 
he said there were still many victims of this species of mutilation in 



CONSUL ROGER CASEMENT'S REPORT 59 

the surrounding country. Two cases of the kind came to my actual 
notice while I was in the lake. One, a young man, both of whose 
hands had been beaten off with the butt-ends of rifles against a tree, 
the other a young lad of eleven or twelve years of age, whose right 
hand was cut of! at the wrist. This boy described the circumstances 
of his mutilation, and, in answer to my inquiry, said that although 
wounded at the time he was perfectly sensible of the severing of 
his wrist, but lay still fearing that if he moved he would be killed. 
In both these cases the Government soldiers had been accompanied 
by white officers whose names were given to me. Of six natives 
(one a girl, three little boys, one youth, and one old woman) who 
had been mutilated in this way during the rubber regime, all except 
one were dead at the date of my visit. The old woman had died 
at the beginning of this year, and her niece described to me how the 
act of mutilation in her case had been accomplished." 

The fines inflicted upon villages for trifling offences were such as 
to produce the results here described: 

"The officer had then imposed as further punishment a fine of 
55,000 brass rods (2,750 fr.) — ^110. This sum they had been 
forced to pay, and as they had no other means of raising so large 
a sum they had, many of them, been compelled to sell their children 

and their wives. I saw no live-stock of any kind in W save 

a very few fowls — possibly under a dozen — and it seemed, indeed, 
not unlikely that, as these people asserted, they had great difficulty 
in always getting their supplies ready. A father and mother stepped 
out and said that they had been forced to sell their son, a little boy 
called F, for 1,000 rods to meet their share of the fine. A widow 
came and declared that she had been forced, in order to meet her 
share of the fine, to sell her daughter G, a little girl whom I judged 
from her description to be about ten years of age. She had been 

sold to a man in Y , who was named, for 1,000 rods, which had 

then gone to make up the fine." 

The natives were broken in spirit by the treatment: 

"One of them — a strong, indeed, a splendid-looking man — 
broke down and wept, saying that their lives were useless to them, 
and that they knew of no means of escape from the troubles which 
were gathering around them. I could only assure these people that 
their obvious course to obtain relief was by appeal to their own 



60 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

constituted authorities, and that if their circumstances were clearly 
understood by those responsible for these fines I trusted and believed 
some satisfaction would be forthcoming. " 

These fines, it may be added, were absolutely illegal. It was 
the officer, not the poor, harried natives, who had broken the law. 

"These fines, it should be borne in mind, are illegally imposed; 
they are not 'fines of Court'; are not pronounced after any judicial 
hearing, or for any proved offence against the law, but are quite 
arbitrarily levied according to the whim or ill-will of the executive 
officers of the district, and their collection, as well as their imposition, 
involves continuous breaches of the Congolese laws. They do not, 
moreover, figure in the account of public revenues in the Congo 
' Budgets'; they are not paid into the public purse of the country, 
but are spent on the needs of the station or military camp of the 
officer imposing them, just as seems good to this official." 

Here is an illustrative anecdote: 

"One of the largest Congo Concession Companies had, when 
I was on the Upper River, addressed a request to its Directors in 
Europe for a further supply of ball-cartridge. The Directors had 
met this demand by asking what had become of the 72,000 cartridges 
shipped some three years ago, to which a reply was sent to the effect 
that these had all been used in the production of india-rubber. I 
did not see this correspondence, and cannot vouch for the truth of 
the statement; but the officer who informed me that it had passed 
before his own eyes was one of the highest standing in the interior. " 

Another witness showed the exact ratio between cartridges and 
rubber: 

" 'The S. A. B. on the Bussira, with 150 guns, get only ten tons 
(rubber) a month; we, the State, at Momboyo, with 130 guns, 
get thirteen tons per month.' ' So you count by guns ?' I asked him. 
'Partout,' M. P. said. 'Each time the corporal goes out to get 
rubber cartridges are given to him. He must bring back all not 
used; and for every one used, he must bring back a right hand.' 
M. P. told me that sometimes they shot a cartridge at an animal 
in hunting; they then cut off a hand from a living man. As to the 
extent to which this is carried on, he informed me that in six months 
they, the State, on the Momboyo River, had used 6,ooo cartridges, 



CONSUL ROGER CASEMENT'S REPORT 61 

which means that 6,000 people are killed or mutilated. It means 
more than 6,000 for the people have told me repeatedly that the 
soldiers kill children with the butt of their guns." 

That the statement about the cutting off of living hands is correct 
is amply proved by the Kodak. I have photographs of at least 
twenty such mutilated Negroes in my own possession. 

Here is a copy of a dispatch from an official quoted in its naked 
frankness : 

"Le Chef Ngulu de Wangata est envoye dans la Maringa, pour 
m'y acheter des esclaves. Priere a MM. les agents de FA.B.LR. 
de bien vouloir me signaler les mefaits que celui-ci pourrait com- 
mettre en route. 

"Le Capitaine-Commandant, 

(Signe) " Sarrazzyn." 
u Colquilhatville, le i er Mai, 1896." 

Pretty good for the State which boasts that it has put down the 
slave trade. 

There is a passage showing the working of the rubber system 
which is so clear and authoritative that I transcribe it in full: 

"I went to the homes of these men some miles away and found 
out their circumstances. To get the rubber they had first to go 
fully a two days' journey from their homes, leaving their wives, 
and being absent for from five to six days. They were seen to the 
forest limits under guard, and if not back by the sixth day trouble 
was likely to ensue. To get the rubber in the forests — which, 
generally speaking, are very swampy — involves much fatigue and 
often fruitless searching for a well-flowing vine. As the area of 
supply diminishes, moreover, the demand for rubber constantly 
increases. Some little time back I learned the Bongandanga district 
supplied seven tons of rubber a month, a quantity which it was 
hoped would shortly be increased to ten tons. The quantity of 
rubber brought by the three men in question would have represented, 
probably, for the three of them certainly not less than seven kilog. 
of pure rubber. That would be a very safe estimate, and at an 
average of 7fr. per kilog. they might be said to have brought in £2 
worth of rubber. In return for this labour, or imposition, they had 
received goods which cost certainly under is., and whose local 



62 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

valuation came to 45 rods (15. iod.). As this process repeats itself 
twenty-six times a year, it will be seen that they would have yielded 
£52 in kind at the end of the year to the local factory, and would 
have received in return some 24s. or 255. worth of goods, which had 
a market value on the spot of £2 75. Sd. In addition to these formal 
payments they were liable at times to be dealt with in another manner, 
for should their work, which might have been just as hard, have 
proved less profitable in its yield of rubber, the local prison would 
have seen them. The people everywhere assured me that they were 
not happy under this system, and it was apparent to a callous eye 
that in. this they spoke the strict truth. " 

Again I insert a passage to show that Casement was by no means 
an ill-natured critic: 

"It is only right to say that the present agent of the A.B.I.R. 
Society I met at Bongandanga seemed to me to try, in very difficult 
and embarrassing circumstances, to minimize as far as possible, 
and within the limits of his duties, the evils of the system I there 
observed at work." 

Speaking of the Mongalla massacres — those in which Lothaire was 
implicated — he quotes from the judgment of the Court of Appeal : 

"That it is just to take into account that, by the correspondence 
produced in the case, the chiefs of the Concession Company have, 
if not by formal orders, at least by their example and their tolerance, 
induced their agents to take no account whatever of the rights, 
property, and lives of the natives; to use the arms and the soldiers 
which should have served for their defence and the maintenance of 
order to force the natives to furnish them with produce and to work 
for the Company, as also to pursue as rebels and outlaws those who 
sought to escape from the requisitions imposed upon them. . . . 
That, above all, the fact that the arrest of women and their detention, 
to compel the villages to furnish both produce and workmen, was 
tolerated and admitted even by certain of the administrative 
authorities of the region." 

Yet another example of the workings of the system: 

"In the morning, when about to start for K , many people 

from the surrounding country came in to see me. They brought 



CONSUL ROGER CASEMENT'S REPORT 63 

with them three individuals who had been shockingly wounded by 
gun fire, two men and a very small boy, not more than six years of 
age, and a fourth — a boy child of six or seven — whose right hand 
was cut off at the wrist. One of the men, who had been shot through 

the arm, declared that he was Y of L , a village situated some 

miles away. He declared that he had been shot as I saw under the 
following circumstances: the soldiers had entered his town, he 
alleged, to enforce the due fulfilment of the rubber tax due by the 
community. These men had tied him up and said that unless he 
paid 1,000 brass rods to them they would shoot him. Having no 
rods to give them they had shot him through the arm and had 
left him." 

I may say that among my photographs are several with shattered 
arms who have been treated in this fashion. 

This is how the natives were treated when they complained to 
the white man: 

"In addition, fifty women are required each morning to go to 
the factory and work there all day. They complained that the 
remuneration given for these services was most inadequate, and 
that they were continually beaten. When I asked the Chief W 
why he had not gone to D F to complain if the sentries beat him 
or his people, opening his mouth he pointed to one of the teeth 
which was just dropping out, and said: 'That is what I got from 
the D F four days ago when I went to tell him what I now say to 
you.* He added that he was frequently beaten, along with others 
of his people, by the white man." 

One sentry was taken almost red-handed by Mr. Casement: 

" After some little delay a boy of about fifteen years of age appeared, 
whose left arm was wrapped up in a dirty rag. Removing this, I 
found the left hand had been hacked off by the wrist, and that a shot 
hole appeared in the fleshy part of the forearm. The boy, who gave 
his name as I I, in answer to my inquiry, said that a sentry of the 
La Lulanga Company now in the town had cut off his hand. I 
proceeded to look for this man, who at first could not be found, the 
natives to a considerable number gathering behind me as I walked 
through the town. After some delay the sentry appeared, carrying 
a cap-gun. The boy, whom I placed before him, then accused 
him to his face of having mutilated him. The men of the town, 



64 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

who were questioned in succession, corroborated the boy's statement. 
The sentry, who gave his name as K K, could make no answer to 
the charge. He met it by vaguely saying some other sentry of the 
Company had mutilated I I; his predecessor, he said, had cut off 
several hands, and probably this was one of the victims. The 
natives around said that there were two other sentries at present 
in the town, who were not so bad as K K, but that he was a villain. 
As the evidence against him was perfectly clear, man after man 
standing out and declaring he had seen the act committed, I informed 
him and the people present that I should appeal to the local authorities 
for his immediate arrest and trial." 

The following extract must be my final quotation from Consul 
Casement's report: 

"I asked then how this tax was imposed. One of them, who 
had been hammering out an iron neck-collar on my arrival, spoke 
first. He said: 

" ' I am N N. These other two beside me are O O and P P, 

all of us Y . From our country each village had to take twenty 

loads of rubber. These loads were big: they were as big as this. 
. . .' (Producing an empty basket which came nearly up to 
the handle of my walking-stick.) 'That was the first size. We 
had to fill that up, but as rubber got scarcer the white man reduced 
the amount. We had to take these loads in four times a month.' 

" Q. l How much pay did you get for this ?' 

"A. (Entire audience.) 'We got no pay! We got nothing ! ' 

" And then N N, whom I asked again, said: 

" ' Our village got cloth and a little salt, but not the people who 
did the work. Our chiefs eat up the cloth; the workers got nothing. 
The pay was a fathom of cloth and a little salt for every big basket- 
ful, but it was given to the chief, never to the men. It used to 
take ten days to get the twenty baskets of rubber — we were always 
in the forest and then when we were late we were killed. We had 
to go further and further into the forest to find the rubber vines, to 
go without food, and our women had to give up cultivating the fields 
and gardens. Then we starved. Wild beasts — the leopards — 
killed some of us when we were working away in the forest, and 
others got lost or died from exposure and starvation, and we begged 
the white man to leave us alone, saying we could get no more rubber, 
but the white men and their soldiers said: "Go! You are only 



CONSUL ROGER CASEMENT'S REPORT 65 

beasts yourselves; you are nyama (meat)." We tried, always going 
further into the forest, and when we failed and our rubber was short, 
the soldiers came to our towns and killed us. Many were shot, some 
had their ears cut off: others were tied up with ropes around their 
necks and bodies and taken away. The white men sometimes at 
the posts did not know of the bad things the soldiers did to us, but 
it was the white men who sent the soldiers to punish us for not bringing 
in enough rubber.' 

" Here P P took up the tale from N N: 

" 'We said to the white men, "We are not enough people now to 
do what you want us. Our country has not many people in it and 
we are dying fast. We are killed by the work you make us do, by 
the stoppage of our plantations, and the breaking up of our homes." 
The white man looked at us and said: "There are lots of people in 
Mputu"' (Europe, the white man's country). '"If there are lots 
of people in the white man's country there must be many people 
in the black man's country." The white man who said this was 

the chief white man at F F ; his name was A B; he was a very 

bad man. Other white men of Bula Matadi who had been bad 
and wicked were B C, C D, and DE.' ' These had killed us often, 
and killed us by their own hands as well as by their soldiers. Some 
white men were good. These were E F, F G, G H, H I, I K, K L.' 

"These ones told them to stay in their homes and did not hunt 
and chase them as the others had done, but after what they had 
suffered they did not trust more any one's word, and they had fled 
from their country and were now going to stay here, far from their 
homes, in this country where there was no rubber. 

"Q. 'How long is it since you left your homes, since the big 
trouble you speak of ?' 

"A. 'It lasted for three full seasons, and it is now four seasons 
since we fled and came into the K country.' 

" Q. 'How many days is it from N to your own country?' 

" A. 'Six days of quick marching. We fled because we could 
not endure the things done to us. Our chiefs were hanged, and 
we were killed and starved and worked beyond endurance to get 

rubber.' 

"Q. 'How do you know it was the white men themselves who 
ordered these cruel things to be done to you ? These things must 
have been done without the white man's knowledge by the black 
soldiers.' 



66 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

"A. (PP): 'The white men told their soldiers: "You kill 
only women; you cannot kill men. You must prove that you 
kill men." So then the soldiers when they killed us* (here he stopped 
and hesitated, and then pointing to the private parts of my bulldog 
— it was lying asleep at my feet), he said: 'then they cut off those 
things and took them to the white men, who said: "It is true, you 
have killed men." ' 

"Q. 'You mean to tell me that any white man ordered your 
bodies to be mutilated like that, and those parts of you carried to 
him?' 

"PP, O O, and all (shouting): 'Yes! many white men. DE 
did it.' 

"Q. 'You say this is true? Were many of you so treated after 
being shot?' 

"All (shouting out): 'Nkoto! Nkoto!' (Very many! Very 
many!) 

" There was no doubt that these people were not inventing. Their 
vehemence, their flashing eyes, their excitement, was not simulated. 
Doubtless they exaggerated the numbers, but they were clearly 
telling what they knew and loathed. I was told that they often 
became so furious at the recollection of what had been done to 
them that they lost control over themselves. One of the men before 
me was getting into this state now." 

Such is the story — or a very small portion of it — which His 
Majesty's Consul conveyed to His Majesty's Government as to the 
condition of those natives, who, "in the name of Almighty God," 
we had pledged ourselves to defend! 

The same damning White Book contained a brief account of 
Lord Cromer's experience upon the Upper Nile in the Lado district. 
He notes that for eighty miles the side of the river which is British 
territory was crowded with native villages, the inhabitants of which 
ran along the bank calling to the steamer. The other bank (Congo- 
lese territory), was a deserted wilderness. The "Tuquoque" 
argument which King Leopold's henchmen are so fond of advancing 
will find it hard to reconcile the difference. Lord Cromer ends 
his report: 

" It appears to me that the facts which I have stated above afford 
amply sufficient evidence of the spirit which animates the Belgian 
Administration, if, indeed, Administration it can be called. The 



CONSUL ROGER CASEMENT'S REPORT 67 

Government, so far as I could judge, is conducted almost exclusively 
on commercial principles, and, even judged by that standard, it 
would appear that those principles are somewhat short-sighted/ ' 

In the same White Book which contains these documents there 
is printed the Congolese defence drawn up by M. de Cuvelier. The 
defence consists in simply ignoring all the definite facts laid before 
the public, and in making such statements as that the British have 
themselves made war upon natives, as if there were no distinction 
between war and massacre, and that the British have put a poll-tax 
upon natives, which, if it be reasonable in amount, is a perfectly 
just proceeding adopted by all Colonial nations. Let the possessors 
of the Free State use this system, and at the same time restore the 
freedom of trade by throwing open the country to all, and returning 
to the natives that land and produce which has been taken from 
them. When they have done this — and punished the guilty — 
there will be an end of anti-Congo agitation. Beyond this, a large 
part (nearly half) of the Congo Reply (notes sur le rapport de Mr. 
Casement, de Dec. 11, 1903), is taken up by trying to show that in 
one case of mutilation the injuries were, in truth, inflicted by a wild 
boar. There must be many wild boars in Congo land, and their 
habits are of a singular nature. It is not in the Congo that these 
boars are bred. 



VIII 

KING LEOPOLD'S COMMISSION AND ITS REPORT 

THE immediate effect of the publication as a State paper of the 
general comment of Lord Cromer, and of the definite accusa- 
tions of Consul Casement, was a demand both in Belgium 
and in England for an official inquiry. Lord Landsdowne stipulated 
that this inquiry should be impartial and thorough. It was also 
suggested by the British Government that it should be international 
in character, and separated from the local administration. Very 
grudgingly and under constant pressure the King appointed a Com- 
mission, but whittled down its powers to such a point that its proceed- 
ings must lose all utility. Such were the terms that they provoked 
remonstrance from men like M. A. J. Wauters, the Belgian historian 
of the Congo Free State, who protested in the Mouvement Geogra- 
phique (August 7 th, 1904) that such a body could serve no useful 
end. Finally, their functions were slightly increased, but they pos- 
sessed no punitive powers and were hampered in every direction by the 
terms of their reference. 

The personnel of the Commission was worthy of the importance 
of the inquiry. M. Janssens, a well-known jurist of Belgium, was 
the president. He impressed all who came in contact with him as a 
man of upright and sympathetic character. Baron Nisco's appoint- 
ment was open to criticism, as he was himself a Congo functionary, 
but save for that fact there was no complaint to make against him. 
Dr. Schumacher, a distinguished Swiss lawyer, was the third Com- 
missioner. The English Government applied to have a representa- 
tive upon the tribunal, and with true Congo subtlety the request was 
granted after the three judges had reached the Congo. The English- 
man, Mr. Mackie, hurried out, but was only in time to attend the last 
three sittings, which were held in the lower part of the river, far from 
the notorious rubber agents. It is worth noting that on his arrival 
he applied for the minutes of the previous meetings and that his 
application was refused. In Belgium the evidence of the Commis- 

68 



KING LEOPOLD'S COMMISSION AND ITS REPORT 69 

sion has never been published, and it is safe to say that it never will 
be. Fortunately the Congo missionaries took copious notes of the 
proceedings and of the testimony which came immediately under 
their own notice. It is from their evidence that I draw these accounts. 
If the Congo authorities contest the accuracy of those accounts, then 
let them confute them forever and put their accusers to confusion by 
producing the actual minutes which they hold. 

The first sitting of any length of which there are records is that at 
Bolobo, and extended from November 5 th to 12 th, 1904. The 
veteran, Mr. Grenfell, gave evidence at this sitting, and it is useful 
to summarize his views as he was one of the men who held out longest 
against the condemnation of King Leopold, and because his early 
utterances have been quoted as if he were a supporter of the system. 
He expressed to the Commissioners his disappointment at the failure 
of the Congo Government to realize the promises with which it 
inaugurated its career. He declared he could no longer wear the 
decorations which he had received from the Sovereign of the Congo 
State. He gave it as his opinion that the ills the country was suffering 
from were due to the haste of a few men to get rich, and to the absence 
of anything like a serious attempt to properly police the country in 
the interests of the people. He instanced the few judicial officers, and 
the virtual impossibility of a native obtaining justice, owing to wit- 
nesses being compelled to travel long distances, either to Leopoldville 
or Boma. Mr. Grenfell spoke out emphatically against the adminis- 
trative regime on the Upper River, so far as it had been brought under 
his notice. 

Mr. Scrivener, a gentleman who had been twenty- three years on the 
Congo, was the next witness. His evidence was largely the same as 
the "Diary" from which I have already quoted, concerning the con- 
dition of the Crown Domain. Many witnesses were examined. " How 
do you know the names of the men murdered ?" a lad was asked. " One 
of them was my father," was the dramatic reply. "Men of stone," 
wrote Mr. Scrivener, " would be moved by the stories that are unfolded 
as the Commission probes this awful history of rubber collection." 

Mr. Gilchrist, another missionary, was a new witness. His testi- 
mony was concerned with the State Domain and the Concessionnaire 
area, principally on the Lulanga River. He said: 

" I also told them what we had seen on the Ikelemba, of the signs 
of desolation in all the districts, of the heartrending stories the people 



70 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

told us, of the butcheries wrought by the various white men of the 
State and companies who had, from time to time, been stationed there 
among whom a few names were notorious. I pointed out to them the 
fact that the basin of the Ikelemba was supposed to be free-trade 
territory also, but that everywhere the people of the various districts 
were compelled to serve the companies of these respective districts, 
in rubber, gum copal or food. At one out-of-the-way place where 
we were on the south bank, two men arrived just as we were leaving, 
with their bodies covered with marks of the chicotte, which they had 
just received from the trader of Bosci because their quantity had been 
short. I said to the Commissaire, given favourable conditions, par- 
ticularly freedom, there would soon be a large population in these 
interior towns, the Ngombe and Mongo." 

In answer to questions the following facts were solicited: 

" Unsettled condition of the people. The older people never seem 
to have confidence to build their houses substantially. If they have 
any suspicion of the approach of a canoe or steamer with soldiers 
they flee. 

"Chest disease, pneumonia, etc. These carry off very many. 
The people flee to the islands, live in the open air, expose them- 
selves to all kinds of weather, contract chills, which are followed by 
serious lung troubles, and die. For years we never saw a new house 
because of the drifting population. They have a great fear of soldiers. 
In the case of many the absence from the villages is temporary; in 
the case of a few they permanently settle on the north bank of the river. 

"Want of proper nourishment. I have witnessed the collecting 
of the State imposition, and after this was set aside the natives had 
nothing but leaves to eat." 

Also, that fines, which the Commission at once declared to be 
illegal, were constantly levied on the people, and that these fines 
had continued after the matter had been reported to the Governor- 
General. In spite of this declaration of illegality, no steps were taken 
in the matter, and M. de Bauw, the chief offender, was by last accounts 
the supreme executive official of the district. At every turn one finds 
that there is no relation at all between law and practice in the Congo. 
Law is habitually broken by every official from the Governor- General 
downward if the profits of the State can be increased thereby. The 
only stern enforcement of the laws is toward the foreigner, the Aus- 



KING LEOPOLD'S COMMISSION AND ITS REPORT 71 

trian Rubinck, or the Englishman Stokes, who is foolish enough 
to think that an international agreement is of more weight than the 
edicts of Boma. These men believed it, and met their death through 
their belief without redress, and even, in the case of the Austrian, with- 
out public remonstrance. 

The next considerable session of the Commission was at Baringa. 
Mr. Harris and Mr. Stannard, the missionaries at this station, had 
played a noble part throughout in endeavouring within their very 
limited powers to shield the natives from their tormentors. In both 
cases, and also in that of Mrs. Harris, this had been done at the 
repeated risk of their lives. Their white neighbours of the rubber 
factories made their lives miserable also by preventing their receipt 
of food from the natives, and harassing them in various ways. 
On one occasion a chief and his son were both murdered by the 
order of the white agent because they had supplied the Harris house- 
hold with the fore-quarter of an antelope. Before giving the terrible 
testimony of the missionaries — a testimony which was admitted to be 
true by the chief agent of the A.B.I.R. Company on the spot, it would 
be well to show the exact standing of this Corporation and its relation 
to the State. These relations are so close that they become to all 
intents and purposes the same. The State holds fifty per cent, of 
the shares; it places the Government soldiers at the company's dis- 
posal; it carries up in the Government steamers and supplies licenses 
for the great number of rifles and the quantity of cartridges which the 
company needs for its murderous work. Whatever crimes are done 
by the company, the State is a close accomplice. Finally, the Euro- 
pean directors of this bloodstained company are, or were at the time, 
the Senator Van der Nest, who acted as President ; and as Council : 
Count John d'Oultremont, Grand Marshal of the Belgian Court; 
Baron Dhanis, of Congo fame, and M. van Eetevelde, the creature of 
the King, and the writer of so many smug despatches to the British 
Government about the mission of civilization and the high purpose 
of the Congo State. Now listen to some of the testimony as con- 
densed by Mr. Harris: 

"First, the specific atrocities during 1904 were dealt with, includ- 
ing men, women, and children; then murders and outrages, including 
cannibalism. From this I passed on to the imprisonment of men, 
women and children. Following this I called attention to the destruc- 
tion of the Baringa towns and the partial famine among the people 



72 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

in consequence. Also the large gangs of prisoners — men, women 
and children — imprisoned to carry out this work ; the murder of 
two men whilst it was being done. Next followed the irregularities 
during 1903. The expedition conducted by an A.B.I.R. agent against 
Samb'ekota, and the arming continually of A.B.I.R. sentries with 
Albini rifles. Following this I drew attention to the administration 
of Mons. Forcie, whose regime was a terrible one, including the 
murder of Isekifasu, the principal Chief of Bolima; the killing, 
cutting up and eating of his wives, son and children ; the decorating of 
the chief houses with the intestines, liver and heart of some of the 
killed, as stated by 'Veritas' in the West African Mail. 

"I confirmed in general the letter published in the West African 
Mail by 'Veritas.' 

"Following this I came to Mons. Tagner's time, and stated that 
no village in this district had escaped murders under this man's 
regime. 

"Next we dealt with irregularities common to all agents, calling 
attention to and proving by specific instances the public floggings of 
practically any and every one; quoting, for instance, seeing with 
my own eyes six Ngombe men receive one hundred strokes each, 
delivered simultaneously by two sentries. 

"Next, the normal condition has always been the imprisoning of 
men, women and children, all herded together in one shed, with 
no arrangement for the demands of nature. Further, that very many, 
including even chiefs, had died either in prison or immediately on 
their release. 

"Next, the mutilation of the woman Boaji, because she wished 
to remain faithful to her husband, and refused to subject herself to 
the passions of the sentries. The woman's footless leg and hernia 
testify to the truth of her statement. She appeared before the Com- 
mission and doctor. 

"Next, the fact that natives are imprisoned for visiting friends 
and relatives in other villages, and the refusal to allow native canoes 
to pass up and down river without carrying a permit signed by the 
rubber agent; pointing out that even missionaries are subject to these 
restrictions, and publicly insulted, in an unprintable manner, when 
they do so. 

"Next point dealt with was responsibility — maintaining that 
responsibility lay not so much in the individual as in the system. 
The sentry blames the agent, he in turn the director, and so on. 



KING LEOPOLD'S COMMISSION AND ITS REPORT 73 

"I next called attention to the difficulties to be faced by natives 
in reporting irregularities. The number of civil officials is too small; 
the practical impossibility of reaching those that do exist — the native 
having first to ask permission of the rubber agent. 

"The relations that are at present necessary between the A.B.I.R. 
and the State render it highly improbable that the natives will ever 
report irregularities. I then pointed out that we firmly believe that 
but for us these irregularities would never have come to light. 

"Following on this the difficulties to be faced by missionaries were 
dealt with, pointing out that the A.B.I.R. can and do impose on us 
all sorts of restrictions if we dare to speak a word about their irregulari- 
ties. I then quoted a few of the many instances which found their 
climax in Mrs. Harris and I almost losing our lives for daring to oppose 
the massacres by Van Caelcken. It was also stated that we could not 
disconnect the attitude of the State in refusing us fresh sites with our 
action in condemning the administration. I then mentioned that 
the forests are exhausted of rubber, pointing out that during a five 
days' tour through the forests I did not see a single vine of any size. 
This is solely because the vines have been worked in such a manner 
that all the rubber roots need many years' rest, whereas the natives 
now are actually reduced to digging up those roots in order to get 
rubber. 

"The next subject dealt with was the clear violation both of the 
spirit and letter of the Berlin Act. In the first place we are not 
allowed to extend the Mission, and, further, we are forbidden to trade 
even for food. 

"Next the statement was made that, so far as we are aware, no 
single sentry had ever been punished by the State till 1904 for the many 
murders committed in this district. 

"I next pointed out that one reason why the natives object to 
paddle for the A.B.I.R. is because of the sentries who travel in the 
A.B.I.R. canoes, and whose only business is to flog the paddlers in 
order to keep them going. 

"After Mr. Stannard had been heard, sixteen Esanga witnesses 
were questioned one by one. They gave clearly the details of how 
father, mother, brother, sister, son or daughter were killed in cold 
blood for rubber. These sixteen represented over twenty murders in 
Esanga alone. Then followed the big chief of all Bolima, who suc- 
ceeded Isekifasu (murdered by the A.B.I.R.). What a sight for 
those who prate about lying missionaries! He stood boldly before 



74 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

all, pointed to his twenty witnesses, placed on the table his one 
hundred and ten twigs, each twig representing a life for rubber. 
* These are chiefs' twigs, these are men's, these shorter are women's, 
these smaller still are children's.' He gives the names of scores, but 
begs for permission to call his son as a reminder. The Commission, 
though, is satisfied with him, that he is telling the truth, and there- 
fore say that it is unnecessary. He tells how his beard of many 
years' growth, and which nearly reached his feet, was cut off by a 
rubber agent, merely because he visited a friend in another town. 
Asked if he had not killed A.B.I.R. sentries, he denied it, but owned 
to his people spearing three of the sentry's boys. He tells how the 
white man fought him, and when the fight was over handed him his 
corpses, and said: 'Now you will bring rubber, won't you?' To 
which he replied: 'Yes.' The corpses were cut up and eaten by 
Mons. Forcie's fighters. He also told how he had been chicotted 
and imprisoned by the A.B.I.R. agent, and further put to the most 
menial labour by the agent. 

"Here Bonkoko came forward and told how he accompanied the 
A.B.I.R. sentries when they went to murder Isekifasu and his wives 
and little ones; of finding them peacefully sitting at their evening 
meal; of the killing as many as they could, also the cutting up and 
eating of the bodies of Isekifasu's son and his father's wives; of how 
they dashed the baby's brains out, cut the body in half, and impaled 
the halves. 

"Again he tells how, on their return, Mons. Forcie had the 
sentries chicotted because they had not killed enough of the Bolima 
people. 

"Next came Bongwalanga, and confirmed Bonkoko's story; this 
youth went to 'look on.' After this the mutilated wife of Lomboto, 
of Ekerongo, was carried by a chief, who showed her footless leg and 
hernia. This was the price she had to pay for remaining faithful 
to her husband. The husband told how he was chicotted because he 
was angry about his wife's mutilation. 

"Then Longoi, of Lotoko, placed eighteen twigs on the table, 
representing eighteen men, women and children murdered for rub- 
ber. Next, Inunga laid thirty-four twigs on the table and told how 
thirty-four of his men, women and children had been murdered at 
Ekerongo. He admits that they had speared one sentry, Iloko, 
but that, as in every other such instance, was because Iloko had first 
killed their people. Lomboto shows his mutilated wrist and useless 



KING LEOPOLD'S COMMISSION AND ITS REPORT 75 

hand, done by the sentry. Isekansu shows his stump of a forearm, 
telling the same pitiful story. Every witness tells of floggings, rape, 
mutilations, murders, and of imprisonments of men, women and 
children, and of illegal fines and irregular taxes, etc., etc. The 
Commission endeavours to get through this slough of iniquity and 
river of blood, but finding it hopeless, asks how much longer I can go 
on. I tell them I can go on until they are satisfied that hundreds of 
murders have been committed by the A.B.I.R. in this district alone; 
murders of chiefs, men, women and little children, and that 
multitudes of witnesses only await my signal to appear by the 
thousand. 

"I further point out that we have only considered about two hun- 
dred murders from the villages of Bolima, Esanga, Ekerongo, Lotoko; 
that by far the greater majority still remain. The following districts 
are as yet untouched: Bokri, Nson-go, Boru-ga, Ekala, Baringa, 
Linza, Lifindu, Nsongo-Mboyo, Livoku, Boendo, the Lomako river, 
the Ngombe country, and many others, all of whom have the same 
tale to tell. Every one saw the hopelessness of trying to investigate 
things fully. To do so, the Commission would have to stay here for 
months.' ' 

What comment can be added to such evidence as this! It stands 
in its naked horror, and it is futile to try to make it more vivid. What 
can any of those English apologists of the Congo who have thrown 
a doubt upon the accounts of outrages because in passing through a 
section of this huge country upon a flying visit they had not happened 
to see them — what can Lord Mountmorris, Captain Boyd Alexander, 
or Mrs. French Sheldon say in the face of a mass of evidence with the 
actual mutilated limbs and excoriated backs to enforce it ? Can they 
say more than the man actually incriminated, M. Le Jeune, the chief 
agent at the spot? "What have you to say?" asked the President. 
M. Le Jeune shrugged his shoulders. He had nothing to say. The 
President, who had listened, to his honour be it spoken, with tears 
running down his cheeks to some of the evidence, cried out in amaze- 
ment and disgust. " There is one document I would put in," said 
the agent. "It is to show that 142 of my sentinels were slain by the 
villagers in the course of seven months." "Surely that makes the 
matter worse! " cried the sagacious judge. "If these well-armed men 
were slain by the defenceless villagers, how terrible must the wrongs 
have been which called for such desperate reprisals!" 



76 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

You will ask what was done with this criminal agent, a man whose 
deeds merited the heaviest punishment that human law could bestow. 
Nothing whatever was done to him. He was allowed to slip out of 
the country exactly as Captain Lothaire, in similar circumstances, was 
allowed to slip from the country. An insignificant agent may be 
occasionally made an example of, but to punish the local manager of 
a great company would be to lessen the output of rubber, and what 
are morality and justice compared to that? 

Why should one continue with the testimony given before the 
Commission ? 1 heir wanderings covered a little space of the country 
and were confined to the main river, but everywhere they elicited the 
same tale of slavery, mutilation, and murder. What Scrivener and 
Grenfell said at Bolobo was what Harris and Stannard said at Baringa, 
what Gilchrist said at Lulanga, what Rushin and Gamman said at 
Bongadanga, what Mr. and Mrs. Lower said at Ikan, what Padfield 
said at Bonginda, what Weeks said at Monscombe. The place 
varied, but the results of the system were ever the same. Here and 
there were human touches which lingered in the memory; here and 
there also episodes of horror which stood out even in that universal 
Golgotha. One lad testified that he had lost every relative in the 
world, male or female, all murdered for rubber. As his father lay 
dying he had given him the charge of two infant brothers and enjoined 
him to guard them tenderly. He had cared for them until he had been 
compelled at last to go himself into the forest to gather the rubber. 
One week their quantity had been short. When he returned from 
the wood the village had been raided in his absence, and he found 
his two little brothers lying disembowelled across a log. The com- 
pany, however, paid 200 per cent. 

Four natives had been tortured until they cried out for some one 
to bring a gun and shoot them. 

The chiefs died because their hearts were broken. 

Mr. Gamman knew no village where it took them less than ten 
days out of fifteen to satisfy the demands of the A.B.I.R. As a rule, 
the people had four days in a month to themselves. By law the 
maximum of forced labour was forty hours in a month. But, as I 
have said, there is no relation at all between law and practice in the 
Congo. 

One witness appeared with a string knotted in forty-two places, and 
with a packet of fifty leaves. Each knot represented a murder and 
each leaf a rope in his native village. 



KING LEOPOLD'S COMMISSION AND ITS REPORT 77 

The son of a murdered chief took the body of his father (all 
names, dates and place specified) to show it to the white 
agent, in the hope of justice. The agent called his dog 
and set it on him, the dog biting the son on the leg as he carried 
the corpse of his father. 

The villagers brought their murdered men to M. Spelier, director 
of the La Lulanga Company. He accused them of lying and ordered 
them off. 

One chief was seized by two white agents, one of whom held him 
while the other beat him. When they had finished they kicked 
him to make him get up, but the man was dead. The Commission 
examined ten witnesses in their investigation of this story. The 
chief was Jonghi, the village Bogeka, the date October, 1904. 

Such is a fractional sample of the evidence which was laid before 
the Commission, corroborated by every detail of name, place and date 
which could enforce conviction. There is no doubt that it did enforce 
thorough conviction. The judges travelled down the river sadder and 
wiser men. When they reached Boma, they had an interview with 
Governor- General Constermann. What passed at that interview 
has not been published, but the Governor- General went forth from 
it and cut his own throat. The fact may, perhaps, give some 
indication of how the judges felt when the stories were still 
fresh in their minds, and their nerves wincing under the horror 
of the evidence. 

A whole year elapsed between the starting of the Commission and 
the presentation of their Report, which was published upon October 
31st, 1905. The evidence which would have stirred Europe to its 
foundations was never published at all, in spite of an informal assur- 
ance to Lord Lansdowne that nothing would be held back. Only 
the conclusions saw the light, without the document upon which they 
were founded. 

The effect of that Report, when stripped of its courtly phrases, 
was an absolute confirmation of all that had been said by so many 
witnesses during so many years. It is easy to blame the Commis- 
sioners for not having the full courage of their convictions, but their 
position was full of difficulty. The Report was really a personal one. 
The State was, as no one knew better than themselves, a fiction. It 
was the King who had sent them, and it was to the King himself 
that they were reporting upon a matter which deeply affected his per- 
sonal honour as well as his material interests. Had they been, as 



78 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

had been suggested, an international body, the matter would have 
been simple. But of the three good care had been taken that two 
should be men who would have to answer for what was said. Mr. 
Janssens was a more or less independent man, but a Belgian, and a 
subject all the same. Baron Nisco was in the actual employ of the 
King, and his future was at stake. On the whole, I think that the 
Commissioners acted like brave and honest men. 

Naturally they laid all stress upon what could be said in favour 
of the King and his creation. They would have been more than 
human had they not done so. They enlarged upon the size and the 
traffic of the cities at the mouth of the Congo — as if the whole loot 
of a nation could pass down a river without causing commerce and 
riches at its mouth. Very early in the Report they indicated that the 
question of the State appropriation of the land had forced itself upon 
their notice. "If the State wishes to avoid the principle of the State 
appropriation of vacant lands resulting in abuse," says the Report, 
"it should place its agents and officials on their guard against too 
restrictive interpretation and too rigorous applications." Weak 
and trimming, it is true, but it was the cornerstone of all that the 
King had built, and how were they to knock it rudely out? Their 
attitude was not heroic. But it was natural. They go on: 

"As the greater portion of the land in the Congo is not under 
cultivation, this interpretation concedes to the State A right of 

ABSOLUTE AND EXCLUSIVE OWNERSHIP OVER VIRTUALLY THE WHOLE 
OF THE LAND, WITH THIS CONSEQUENCE : THAT IT CAN DISPOSE — 
ITSELF AND SOLELY — OF ALL THE PRODUCTS OF THE SOIL ; PROSE- 
CUTE AS A POACHER ANY ONE WHO TAKES FROM THAT LAND THE LEAST 
OF ITS FRUITS, OR AS A RECEIVER OF STOLEN GOODS ANY ONE WHO 
RECEIVES SUCH FRUIT: FORBID ANY ONE TO ESTABLISH HIMSELF ON 
THE GREATER PART OF THE TERRITORY. THE ACTIVITY OF THE 
NATIVES IS THUS LIMITED TO VERY RESTRICTED AREAS, AND THEIR 
ECONOMIC CONDITION IS IMMOBILIZED. THUS ABUSIVELY APPLIED, 
SUCH LEGISLATION WOULD PREVENT ANY DEVELOPMENT OF NATIVE 
LIFE. IN THIS MANNER, NOT ONLY HAS THE NATIVE BEEN OFTEN 
FORBIDDEN TO SHIFT HIS VILLAGE, BUT HE HAS EVEN BEEN FOR- 
BIDDEN TO VISIT, EVEN TEMPORARILY, A NEIGHBOURING VILLAGE 
WITHOUT SPECIAL PERMIT. A NATIVE DISPLACING HIMSELF WITHOUT 
BEING THE BEARER OF SUCH AN AUTHORIZATION, WOULD LEAVE 
HIMSELF OPEN TO ARREST, TO BE TAKEN BACK AND EVEN PUNISHED." 



KING LEOPOLD'S COMMISSION AND ITS REPORT 79 

Who could possibly deny, after reading this passage, that the 
Congo native has been reduced from freedom into slavery? There 
follows a curious sentence: 

"Let us hasten," says the Report, "to say that in actual fact so great 
a rigour has not been shown. Almost everywhere certain products 
of the domain have been abandoned to the natives, notably palm 
kernels, which form the object of an important export trade in the 
Lower Congo." 

This palm kernel trade is an old-established one, affecting only the 
mouth of the river, which could not be disturbed without obvious 
international complications, and which bears no relation to the great 
Upper Congo populations, whose inhuman treatment was the question 
at issue. 

The Report then proceeds to point out very clearly, the all-important 
fact which arises from the expropriation of the native from the land. 
"Apart from the rough plantations," it says, "which barely suffice, 
to feed the natives themselves and to supply the stations, all the fruits 
of the soil are considered as the property of the State or of the Con- 
cessionaire societies." This being so, there is an end forever of free 
trade, or, indeed, of any trade, save an export by the Government 
itself, or by a handful of companies which really represent the Govern- 
ment, of the whole wealth of the country to Europe for the benefit of 
a ring of millionaires. 

Having dealt with the taking of the land and the taking of its 
products, the Commission handles with kid gloves the third great 
root proposition, the forcing of the natives, for nothing, under the 
name of taxes, for trifles under the absurd name of trade, to work for 
the sake of their oppressors. It expends many words in showing that 
natives do not like work, and that, therefore, compulsion is necessary. 
It is sad to see just and learned men driven to such straits in defend- 
ing what is indefensible. Do the blacks of the Rand gold mines like 
work? Do the Kimberley diamond hunters like work? Do the 
carriers of an East German caravan like work ? No more than the 
Congolese. Why, then, do they work? Because they are paid a fair 
wage to do so. Because the money earned by their work can bring 
them more pleasure than the work does pain. That is the law of 
work the whole world over. Notably it is the law on the Congo 
itself, where the missionaries, who pay honestly for work, have no 
difficulty in getting it. Of course, the Congolese, like the English- 



80 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

man, or the Belgian, does not like work when it is work which brings 
a benefit to others and none to himself. 

But in spite of this preamble, the Commission cannot escape the 
actual facts. 

"Numbers of agents only thought of one thing: to obtain as 

MUCH AS POSSIBLE IN THE SHORTEST POSSIBLE TIME, and their 

demands were often excessive. This, is not at all astonishing, 

AT ANY RATE AS REGARDS THE GATHERING OF THE PRODUCE OF 
THE DOMAIN. . . . 

that is to say, the revenues for Government; 

For the agents themselves who regulated the tax and saw 
to its collection, had a direct interest in increasing its 
amount, since they received proportional bonuses on the 
produce thus collected." 

No more definite statement could be made of the system which 
had been attacked by the Reformers and denied by the Congo officials 
for so many years. The Report then goes on to tell that when the 
State, in one of those pretended reforms which were meant for Euro- 
pean, not for Congolese, use, allotted forty hours of forced labour per 
month as the amount which the native owed the State, the announce- 
ment was accompanied by a private intimation from the Governor- 
General to the District Commissioners, dated February 23rd, 1904, 
that this new law must have the effect, not of lessening, but "of bring- 
ing about a constant increase in the resources of the Treasury." 
Could they be told in plainer terms that they were to disregard it ? 

The land is taken, the produce is taken, the labour is taken. In old 
days the African slave was exported, but we progress with the ages 
and now a higher intelligence has shown the folly of the old-fashioned 
methods when it is to easy to enslave him in his own home. 

We may pass the Report of the Commission in so far as it deals 
with the taxation of the natives, food taxes, porterage taxes and other 
imposts. It brings out very clearly the curse of the parasitic army, 
with their families, which have to be fed by the natives, and the 
difficulty which it causes them with their limited plantations to find 
the means for feeding themselves. Even the wood to the State 
steamers is not paid for, but is taken as a tax. Such demands "force 
the natives in the neighbourhood of the stations in certain cases to 
an almost continuous labour" — a fresh admission of slave condi- 



KING LEOPOLD'S COMMISSION AND ITS REPORT 81 

tions. The Report describes the result of the rubber tax in the 
following terms: 

"This circumstance [exhaustion of the rubber] explains the repug- 
nance of the native for rubber work, which in itself is not particularly 
painful. In the majority of cases the native must go one or two 
days' march every fortnight, until he arrives at that part of the 
forest where the rubber vines can be met with in a certain degree of 
abundance. There the collector passes a number of days in a 

MISERABLE EXISTENCE. He HAS TO BUILD HIMSELF AN IMPROVISED 
SHELTER, WHICH CANNOT, OBVIOUSLY, REPLACE HIS HUT. He HAS 
NOT THE FOOD TO WHICH HE IS ACCUSTOMED. He IS DEPRIVED 

of his wife, exposed to the inclemencies of the weather and 
the attacks of wild beasts. when once he has collected 
the rubber he must bring it to the state station or to that 
of the Company, and only then can he return to his village, 
where he can sojourn for barely more than two or three 
days, because the next demand is upon him. . . . it is 
hardly necessary to add that this state of affairs is A flagrant 

VIOLATION OF THE FORTY HOURS' LAW." 

The Report deals finally with the question of the punishments 
meted out by the State. These it enumerates as "the taking of 
hostages, the imprisonment of the chiefs, the institution of sentries 
or capitas, fines and military expeditions," the latter being a euphem- 
ism for cold-blooded massacres. It continues: 

"Whatever one may think of native ideas, acts such as taking 
women as hostages outrage too much our ideas of justice to be 
tolerated. The State has prohibited this practice long ago, but with- 
out being able to suppress it." 

The State prohibits, but the State not only condones, but actually 
commands it by private circular. Again the gap which lies betwixt 
law and fact where the interest of gain is concerned. 

"It was barely denied," the Report continues, "that in the various 
posts of the A.B.I.R. which we visited, the imprisonment of women 
hostages, the subjection of the chiefs to servile labour, the humilia- 
tions meted out to them, the flogging of rubber collectors, the brutality 
of the black employe's set over the prisoners, were the rule commonly 
followed." 



82 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

Then follows an illuminative passage about the sentries, capitas 
or " forest guards," or messengers, as they are alternatively called. 
It is a wonder that they were not called hospital orderlies in the efforts 
to make them seem inoffensive. What they actually were was, as 
we have seen, some twenty thousand cannibals armed with Albini 
repeating rifles. The Report says: 

"This system of native supervisors (surveillants) has given rise 
to numerous criticisms, even on the part of State officials. The 
Protestant missionaries heard at Bolobo, Ikoko (Lake Mantumba), 
Lulonga, Bonginda, Ikau, Baringa and Bongandanga, drew up 
formidable accusations against the acts of these intermediaries. 
They brought before the Commission a multitude of native 

WITNESSES, WHO REVEALED A LARGE NUMBER OF CRIMES and excesses 

alleged to have been committed by the sentinels. According to the 
witnesses these auxiliaries, especially those stationed in the villages, 
abuse the authority conferred upon them, convert themselves into 

DESPOTS, CLAIMING THE WOMEN AND THE FOOD, NOT ONLY FOR 
THEMSELVES BUT FOR THE BODY OF PARASITES AND CREATURES WITH- 
OUT ANY CALLING WHICH A LOVE OF RAPINE CAUSES TO BECOME 
ASSOCIATED WITH THEM, AND WITH WHOM THEY SURROUND THEM- 
SELVES AS WITH A VERITABLE BODYGUARD; THEY KILL WITHOUT 
PITY ALL THOSE WHO ATTEMPT TO RESIST THEIR EXIGENCIES AND 

whims. The Commission was obviously unable in all cases to verify 
the exactitude of the allegations made before it, the more so that 
the facts were often several years old. However, truth of the 

CHARGES IS BORNE OUT BY A MASS OF EVIDENCE AND OFFICIAL 
REPORTS." 

It adds: 

"Of HOW MANY ABUSES HAVE THESE NATIVE SENTINELS BEEN 

guilty it would be impossible to say, even approximately. 
Several chiefs of Baringa brought us, according to the 
native custom, bundles of sticks, each of which was meant 
to show one of their subjects killed by the capitas. one 
of them showed 120 murders in his village committed dur- 
ING the last few years. Whatever one may think of the confidence 
with which this native form of book-keeping may inspire one, a 
document handed to the Commission by the Director of the A.B.I.R. 
does not allow any doubt to remain as to the sinister character of the 



KING LEOPOLD'S COMMISSION AND ITS REPORT 83 

system. It consisted of a list showing that from 1st January to 1st 
August, 1905 — that is to say, within a space of seven months — 142 
sentries of the Society had been killed or wounded by the natives. 
Now, it is to be assumed that in many cases these sentries had been 
attacked by the natives by way of revenge. One may judge by this 
of the number of bloody affrays to which their presence had given rise. 
On the other hand, the agents interrogated by the Com- 
mission, OR WHO WERE PRESENT AT THE AUDIENCES, DID NOT EVEN 
ATTEMPT TO DENY THE CHARGES BROUGHT AGAINST THE SENTINELS." 

That last sentence seems the crown of the arch. If the agents 
on the spot did not attempt before the Commission to deny the 
outrages who shall venture to do it in their name ? 

The remainder of the Report, though stuffed with courtly platitudes 
and with vague recommendations of reform which are absolutely 
unpractical, so long as the root causes of all the trouble remain 
undisturbed, contains a few positive passages which are worth pre- 
serving. Talking of the want of definite instructions to military 
expeditions, it says: 

"The consequences are often very murderous. And one must 
not be astonished. If in the course of these delicate opera- 
tions, WHOSE OBJECT IT IS TO SEIZE HOSTAGES AND TO INTIMIDATE 

the natives, constant watch cannot be exercised over the san- 
guinary instincts of the soldiers when orders to punish are given by 
superior authority, it is difficult that the expedition should not 
degenerate into massacres, accompanied by pillage and incendiarism." 

Again : 

"The responsibility for these abuses must not, however, always 
be placed upon the commanders of military expeditions. In con- 
sidering these facts one must bear in mind the deplorable confu- 
sion still existing in the Upper Congo between a state of war and a 
state of peace; between administration and repression; between those 
who may be regarded as enemies and those who have the right to be 
regarded as citizens of the State and treated in accordance with its 
laws. The Commission was struck with the general tone of the 
reports relating to operations described above. Often, while admit- 
ting that the expedition had been sent out solely for shortage 

IN TAXATION, AND WITHOUT MAKING ALLUSION TO AN ATTACK OR 
RESISTANCE ON THE PART OF THE NATIVES, WHICH ALONE WOULD 



84 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

justify the use of arms, the authors of these reports speak of 

' SURPRISING VILLAGES,' 'ENERGETIC PURSUIT,' ' NUMEROUS ENEMIES 
KILLED AND WOUNDED,' 'LOOT,' 'PRISONERS OF WAR,' 'CONDITIONS 

of peace.' Evidently these officers thought themselves at war, acted 
as though at war." 

Again : 

"The course of such expeditions grave abuses have occurred; 
men, women and children have been killed even at the very 
time they sought safety in flight. others have been 
imprisoned. Women have been taken as hostages." 

There is an interesting passage about the missionaries: 

"Often also, in the regions where evangelical stations are estab- 
lished, the native, instead of going to the magistrate, his natural 
protector, adopts the habit when he thinks he has a grievance against 
an agent or an Executive officer, to confide in the missionary. The 
latter listens to him, helps him according to his means, and makes 
himself the echo of all the complaints of a region. Hence the astound- 
ing influence which the missionaries possess in some parts of the 
territory. It exercises itself not only among the natives within the 
purview of their religious propaganda, but over all the villages whose 
troubles they have listened to. The missionary becomes, for the 
native of the region, the only representative of equity and justice; 
he adds to the ascendancy acquired from his religious zeal, the 
prestige which, in the interest of the State itself, should be invested 
in the magistrates." 

I will now turn for a moment to contemplate the document as 
a whole. 

With the characteristic policy of the Congo authorities, it was 
originally given to the world as being a triumphant vindication of 
King Leopold's administration, which would certainly have been the 
greatest whitewashing contract ever yet carried through upon this 
planet. Looked at more closely, it is clearly seen that behind the 
veil of courtly phrase and complimentary forms, every single thing that 
the Reformers have been claiming has been absolutely established. 
That the land has been taken. That the produce has been taken. 
That the people are enslaved. That they are reduced to misery. That 
the white agents have given the capitas a free hand against them. 



KING LEOPOLD'S COMMISSION AND ITS REPORT 85 

That there have been illegal holdings of hostages, predatory expedi- 
tions, murders and mutilations. All these things are absolutely- 
admitted. I do not know that anything more has ever been claimed, 
save that the Commission talks coldly of what a private man must talk 
of hotly, and that the Commission might give the impression that they 
were isolated acts, whereas the evidence here given and the general 
depopulation of the country show that they are general, universal, and 
parts of a single system extending from Leopoldville to the Great 
Lakes, and from the French border to Katanga. Be it private 
domain, crown domain, or Concessionnaire territory, be it land of 
the Kasai, the Anversoise, the Abir, or the Katanga companies, the 
tale still tells of bloodshed and horror. 

Where the Commission differs from the Reformers is in their 
estimate of the gravity of this situation and of the need of absolute 
radical reforms. It is to be borne in mind that of the three judges 
two had never been in Africa before, while the third was a direct 
servant of the attacked institution. They seem to have vaguely 
felt that these terrible facts were necessary phases of Colonial expan- 
sion. Had they travelled, as I have done, in British West Africa, 
and had it been brought home to them that a blow to a black man, 
Sierra Leone, for example, would mean that one would be taken by 
a black policeman before a black judge to be handed over to a black 
gaoler, they would understand that there are other methods of 
administration. Had they ever read of that British Governor of 
Jamaica, who, having in the face of dangerous revolt, executed a 
Negro without due forms of law, was recalled to London, tried, and 
barely escaped with his life. It is by such tension as this that Euro- 
peans in the Tropics, whatever be their nation, must be braced up 
to maintain their civilized morale. Human nature is weak, the influ- 
ence of environment is strong. Germans or English would yield and 
in isolated cases have yielded, to their surroundings. No nation 
can claim much individual superiority in such a matter. But for 
both Germany and England (I would add France, were it not for the 
French Congo) can claim that their system works as strongly against 
outrage as the Belgian one does in favour of it. These things are 
not, as the Commissioners seemed to think, necessary evils, which are 
tolerated elsewhere. How can their raw opinion weigh for a moment 
upon such a point when it is counterbalanced by the words of such 
Reformers as Sir Harry Johnston or Lord Cromer? The fact is 
that the running of a tropical colony is, of all tests, the most searching 



86 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

as to the development of the nation which attempts it; to see help- 
less people and not to oppress them, to see great wealth and not to 
confiscate it, to have absolute power and not to abuse it, to raise the 
native instead of sinking yourself — these are the supreme trials of a 
nation's spirit. We have all failed at times. But never has there been 
failure so hopeless, so shocking, bearing such consequences to the 
world, such degradation to the good name of Christianity and civiliza- 
tion as the failure of the Belgians in the Congo. 

And all this has happened and all this has been tolerated in an age 
of progress. The greatest, deepest, most wide-reaching crime of 
which there is any record, has been reserved for these latter years. 
Some excuse there is for racial extermination where, as with Saxons 
and Celts, two peoples contend for the same land which will but 
hold one. Some excuse, too, for religious massacre when, like 
Mahomet the Second at Constantinople, or Alva in the Lowlands, 
the bigoted murderers honestly conceived that their brutal work was in 
the interest of God. But here the real doers have sat remote with 
cold blood in their veins, knowing well from day to day what they 
were doing, and with the sole object of adding more to wealth which 
was already enormous. Consider this circumstance and consider 
also the professions of philanthropy with which the huge massacre 
was inaugurated, the cloud of lies with which it has been screened, 
the persecution and calumny of the few honest men who uncovered 
it, the turning of religion against religion and of nation against nation 
in the attempt to perpetuate it, and having weighed all this, tell me 
where in the course of history there is any such story. What is prog- 
ress? Is it to run a little faster in a motor-car, to listen to gabble 
in a gramophone ? — these are the toys of life. But if progress is a 
spiritual thing, then we do not progress. Such a horror as this of 
Belgium and the Congo would not have been possible fifty years ago. 
No European nation would have done it, and if it had, no other 
one would have failed to raise its voice in protest. There was more 
decorum and principle in life in those slower days. We live in a 
time of rush, but do not call it progress. The story of the Congo has 
made the idea a little absurd. 



IX 

THE CONGO AFTER THE COMMISSION 

THE high hopes which the advent of the Commission raised 
among the natives and the few Europeans who had acted as 
their champions, were soon turned to bitter disappointment. 
The indefatigable Mr. Harris had sent on after the Commission a 
number of fresh cases which had come to his notice. In one of these 
a chief deposed that he had been held back in his village (Boendo) 
in order to prevent him from reaching the Commission. He suc- 
ceeded in breaking away from his guards, but was punished for his 
enterprise by having his wife clubbed to death by a sentry. He 
brought with him, in the hope that he might lay them before the 
judges, one hundred and eighty-two long twigs and seventy-six smaller 
ones, to represent so many adults and children who had been mur- 
dered by the A.B.I.R. Company in his district during the last few 
years. His account of the methods by which these unfortunate people 
met their deaths will not bear printing. The wildest dreams of the 
Inquisition were outdone. Women had been killed by thrusting 
stakes into them from below. When the horrified missionary asked 
the chief if this was personally known to him, his answer was, "They 
killed my daughter, Nsinga, in this manner; I found the stake in 
her." And a reputable Belgian statesman can write in this year of 
grace that they are carrying on the beneficent and philanthropic 
mission which has been handed down to them. 

In a later communication Mr. Harris gives the names of men, 
women and children killed by the sentries of a M. Pilaet. 

"Last year," he says, "or the year before, the young woman, 
Imenega, was tied to a forked tree and chopped in half with a hatchet, 
beginning at the left shoulder, chopping down through the chest and 
abdomen and out at the side." Again, with every detail of name 
and place, he dwelt upon the horrible fact that public incest had been 
enforced by the sentries — brother with sister, and father with 

87 



88 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

daughter. "Oh, Inglesia," cried the chief in conclusion, "don't 
stay away long; if you do, they will come, I am sure they will come, 
and then these enfeebled legs will not support me, I cannot run away. 
I am near my end; try and see to it that they let me die in peace; 
don't stay away." 

"I was so moved, your Excellency, at these people's story that I 
took the liberty of promising them, in the name of the Congo Free 
State, that you will only kill them in future for crimes. I told them 
the Inspector Royal was, I hoped, on his way, and that I was sure he 
would listen to their story, and give them time to recover themselves. " 

It is terrible to think that such a promise, through no fault of Mr. 
Harris, has not been fulfilled. Are the dreams of the Commissioners 
never haunted by the thought of those who put such trust in them, 
but whose only reward has been that they have been punished for 
the evidence they gave and that their condition has been more miser- 
able than ever. The final practical result of the Commission was that 
upon the natives, and not upon their murderers, came the punish- 
ment. 

M. Malfeyt, a Royal High Commissioner, had been sent out on 
pretence of reform. How hollow was this pretence may be seen from 
the fact that at the same time M. Wahis had been despatched as 
Governor- General in place of that Constermann who had committed 
suicide after his interview with the judges of the Commission. Wahis 
had already served two terms as Governor, and it was under his admin- 
istration that all the abuses the Commission had condemned had 
actually grown up. Could King Leopold have shown more clearly 
how far any real reform was from his mind ? 

M. Malfeyt' s visit had been held up as a step toward improve- 
ment. The British Government had been assured that his visit 
would be of a nature to effect all necessary reforms. On arriving 
in the country, however, he announced that he had no power to act, 
and only came to see and hear. Thus a few more months were 
gained before any change could be effected. The only small consola- 
tion which we can draw from all this succession of impotent ambas- 
sadors and reforming committees, which do not, and were never 
intended to, reform, is that the game has been played and exposed, 
and surely cannot be played again. A Government would deservedly 
be the laughing-stock of the world which again accepted assurances 
from the same source. 



THE CONGO AFTER THE COMMISSION 89 

What, in the meanwhile, was the attitude of that A.B.I.R. Com- 
pany, whose iniquities had been thoroughly exposed before the Com- 
mission, and whose manager M. Le Jeune, had fled to Europe? 
Was it ashamed of its bloodthirsty deeds ? Was it prepared in any 
way to modify its policy after the revelations which its representatives 
had admitted to be true? Read the following interview which Mr. 
Stannard had with M. Delvaux, who had visited the stations of his 
disgraced colleague: 

"He spoke of the Commission of Inquiry in a contemptuous 
manner, and showed considerable annoyance about the things we 
had said to the Commission. He declared the A.B.I R. had full 
authority and power to send out armed sentries, and force the people 
to bring in rubber, and to imprison those who did not. A short time 
ago, the natives of a town brought in some rubber to the agent here, 
but he refused it because it was not enough, and the men were 
thrashed by the A.B.I.R. employees, and driven away. The director 
justified the agent in refusing the rubber because the quantity was 
too small. The Commissioners had declared that the A.B.I.R. had 
no power to send armed sentries into the towns in order to flog the 
people and drive them into the forests to seek rubber; they were 
'guards of the forest,' and that was their work. When we pointed 
this out to M. Delvaux, he pooh-poohed the idea, and said the name 
had no significance; some called the sentries by one name, some by 
another. We pointed out that the people were not compelled to pay 
their taxes in rubber only, but could bring in other things, or even 
currency. He denied this, and said that the alternative tax only 
meant that an agent could impose whatever tax he thought fit. It 
had no reference whatever to the natives. The A.B.I.R. preferred 
the taxes to be paid in rubber. This is what the A.B.I.R. says, in 
spite of the interpretation by Baron Nisco, the highest judicial author- 
ity in the State, that the natives could pay their taxes in what they were 
best able. All these things were said in the presence of the Royal 
High Commissioner, who, whether he approved or not, certainly did 
not contradict or protest against them." 

Within a week or two of the departure of the Commission the 
state of the country was as bad as ever. It cannot be too often 
repeated that it was not local in its origin, but that it occurred there, 
as elsewhere, on account of pressure from the central officials. If 
further proof were needed of this it is to be found in the Van Caelchen 



9 o THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

trial. This agent, having been arrested, succeeded in showing (as 
was done in the Caudron case) that the real guilt lay with his superior 
officers. In his defence he 

"Bases his power on a letter of the Commissaire- General de 
Bauw (the Supreme Executive Officer in the District), and in a 
circular transmitted to him by his director, and signed 'Constermann' 
(Governor- General), which he read to the Court, deploring the dimin- 
ished output in rubber, and saying that the agents of the A.B.I.R. 
should not forget that they had the same powers of 'contrainte par 
corps 1 (bodily detention) as were delegated to the agent of the Societe 
Commerciale Anversoise au Congo for the increase of rubber produc- 
tion; that if the Governor- General or his Commissaire-General did 
not know what they were writing and what they signed, he knows 
what orders he had to obey; it was not for him to question the legality 
or illegality of these orders; his superiors ought to have known and 
have weighed what they wrote before giving him orders to execute; 
that bodily detention of natives for rubber was no secret, seeing 
that at the end of every month a statement of 'contrainte par corps' 
(bodily detention) during the month has to be furnished in duplicate, 
the book signed, and one of the copies transmitted to the Govern- 
ment." 

Whilst these organized outrages were continuing in the Congo, 
King Leopold, at Belgium, had taken a fresh step, which, in its 
cynical disregard for any attempt at consistency, surpassed any of his 
previous performances. Feeling that something must be done in 
the face of the finding of his own delegates, he appointed a fresh 
Commission, whose terms of reference were " to study the conclusions 
of the Commission of Inquiry, to formulate the proposals they call 
for, and to seek for practical means for realizing them.' , It is worth 
while to enumerate the names of the men chosen for this work. Had 
a European Areopagus called before it the head criminals of this 
terrible business, all of these men, with the exception of two or three, 
would have been standing in the dock. Take their names in turn: 
Van Maldeghem, the President — a jurist, who had written on Congo 
law, but had no direct complicity in the crimes; Janssens, the Presi- 
dent of the former Commission, a man of integrity; M. Davignon, 
a Belgian politician — so far the selection is a possible one — now 
listen to the others! De Cuvelier, creature of the King, and respon- 
sible for the Congo horrors; Droogmans, creature of the King, admin- 



THE CONGO AFTER THE COMMISSION 91 

istrator of the secret funds derived from his African estates, and 
himself President of a Rubber Trust; Arnold, creature of the King; 
Liebrechts, the same; Gohr, the same; Chenot, a Congo Commis- 
sioner; Tombeur, the same; Five, a Congo inspector; Nys, the chief 
legal upholder of the King's system; De Hemptinne, President of the 
Kasai Rubber Trust; Mobs, an Administrator of the A.B.I.R. Is 
it not evident that, save the first three, these were the very men who 
were on their trial? The whole appointment is an example of that 
cynical humour which gives a grotesque touch to this inconceivable 
story. It need not be added that no result making for reform ever 
came from such an assembly. One can but rejoice that the presence 
of the small humane minority may have prevented the others from 
devising some fresh methods of oppression. 

It cannot be said, however, that no judicial proceedings and no 
condemnation arose from the actions of the Congo Commission. 
But who could ever guess who the man was who was dragged to the 
bar. On the evidence of natives and missionaries, the whole white 
hierarchy, from Governor- General to subsidized cannibal, had been 
shown to be blood-guilty. Which of them was punished ? None of 
them, but Mr. Stannard, one of the accusing witnesses. He had 
shown that the soldiers of a certain M. Hagstrom had behaved 
brutally to the natives. This was the account of Lontulu the chief : 

" Lontulu, the senior chief of Bolima, came with twenty witnesses, 
which was all the canoe would hold. He brought with him one hun- 
dred and ten twigs, each of which represented a life sacrificed for rub- 
ber. The twigs were of different lengths, and represented chiefs, men, 
women and children, according to their length. It was a horrible 
story of massacre, mutilation and cannibalism that he had to tell, 
and it was perfectly clear that he was telling the truth. He was 
further supported by other eye-witnesses. These crimes were com- 
mitted by those who were acting under the instructions and with the 
knowledge of white men. On one occasion the sentries were flogged 
because they had not killed enough people. At one time, after they 
had killed a number of people, including Isekifasu, the principal 
chief, his wives and children, the bodies, except that of Isekifasu, 
were cut up, and the cannibalistic fighters attached to the A.B.I.R. 
force were rationed on the meat thus supplied. The intestines, etc., 
were hung up in and about the house, and a little child who had been 
cut in halves was impaled. After one attack, Lontulu, the chief, 



92 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

was shown the dead bodies of his people, and asked by the rubber 
agent if he would bring in rubber now. He replied that he would. 
Although a chief of considerable standing, he has been flogged, 
imprisoned, tied by the neck with men who were regarded as slaves, 
made to do the most menial work, and his beard, which was of many 
years' growth, and reached almost to the ground, was cut off by the 
rubber agent because he visited another town." 

Lontulu was cross-examined by the Commission and his evidence 
was not shaken. Here are some of the questions and answers : 

"President Janssens: 'M. Hagstrom leur a fait la guerre. II 
a tue beaucoup d'hommes avec ses soldats.' 

"To Lontulu: 'Were the people of Monji, etc., given the corpses 
to eat?' 

"Lontulu: 'Yes, they cut them up and ate them.' 

"Baron Nisco: 'Did they flog you?' 

" Lontulu : ' Repeatedly.' 

"Baron Nisco: 'Who cut your beard off ?' 

" Lontulu : ' M. Hannotte.' 

"President Janssens: 'Did you see sentries kill your people? 
Did they kill many?' 

"Lontulu: 'Yes, all my family is finished.' 

"President: 'Give us names.' 

"Lontulu: 'Chiefs Bokomo, Isekifasu, Botamba, Longeva, Bos- 
angi, Booifa, Eongo, Lomboto, Loma, Bayolo.' 

"Then followed names of women and children and ordinary 
men (not chiefs). 

"Lontulu : ' May I call my son lest I make a mistake ? ' 

"President: ' It is unnecessary ; goon.' 

"Lontulu: 'Bomposa, Beanda, Ekila.' 

"President: 'Are you sure that each of your twigs (no) represents 
one person killed?' 

"Lontulu: 'Yes.' 

" President : ' Was Isekifasu killed at this time ? ' 

"Reply not recorded. 

"President: 'Did you see his entrails hanging on his house?' 

"Lontulu: 'Yes.' 

"Question: 'Were the sentries and people who helped given 
the dead bodies to eat?' 



THE CONGO AFTER THE COMMISSION 93 

"Answer: 'Yes, they ate them. Those who took part in the 
fight cut them up and ate them. ... He was chicotted (flogged), 
and said, " Why do you do this ? Is it right to flog a chief ? " Gave 
a very full account of his harsh treatment and sufferings." 

The action was taken for criminal libel by M. Hagstrom against 
Mr. Stannard, for saying that this evidence had been given before the 
Commission. Of course, the only way to establish the fact was a 
reference to the evidence itself which lay at Brussels. But as Hag- 
strom was only a puppet of the higher Government of the Congo 
(which means the King himself), in their attempt to revenge them- 
selves upon the missionaries it was not very likely that official docu- 
ments would be produced for the mere purpose of serving the end 
of Justice. The minutes then were not forthcoming. How, then, 
was Mr. Stannard to produce evidence that his account was correct ? 
Obviously by producing Lontulu, the chief. But the wretched 
Lontulu, beaten and tortured, with his beard plucked off and his 
spirit broken, had been cast into gaol before the trial, and knew well 
what would be his fate if he testified against his masters. He with- 
drew all that he had said at the Commission — and who can blame 
him? So M. Hagstrom obtained his verdict and the Belgian reptile 
Press proclaimed that Mr. Stannard had been proved to be a liar. 
He was sentenced to three months' imprisonment, with the alternative 
of a £40 fine. Even as I write, two more of these lion-hearted mis- 
sionaries, Americans this time — Mr. Morrison and Mr. Shepherd — 
are undergoing a similar prosecution on the Congo. This time it is 
the Kasai Company which is the injured innocent. But the eyes of 
Europe and America are on the transaction, and M. Vandervelde, 
the fearless Belgian advocate of liberty, has set forth to act for the 
accused. What M. Labori was to Dreyfus, M. Vandervelde has been 
to the Congo, save that it is a whole nation who are his clients. He 
and his noble comrade, Mr. Lorand, are the two men who redeem the 
record of infamy which must long darken the good name of Belgium. 

I will now deal swiftly with the records of evil deeds which have 
occurred since the time which I have already treated. I say " swiftly " 
not because there is not much material from which to choose, but 
because I feel that my reader must be as sated with horrors as I who 
have to write them. Here are some notes of a journey undertaken by 
W. Cassie Murdoch, as recently as July and September, 1907. This 
time we are concerned with the Crown Domain, King Leopold's 



94 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

private estate, of which we have such accounts from Mr. Clark and 
Mr. Scrivener dating as far back as 1894. Thirteen years had elapsed 
and no change! What do these thirteen represent in torture and 
murder? Could all these screams be united, what a vast cry would 
have reached the heavens. In the Congo hell the most lurid glow is 
to be found in the Royal Domain. And the money dragged from 
these tortured people is used in turn to corrupt newspapers and public 
men — that it may be possible to continue the system. So the devil's 
wheel goes round and round! Here are some extracts from Mr. 
Murdoch's report: 

" I remarked to the old chief of the largest town I came across that 
his people seemed to be numerous. 'Ah,' said he, 'my people are all 
dead. These you see are only a very few of what I once had.' And, 
indeed, it was evident enough that his town had once been a place of 
great size and importance. There cannot be the least doubt that this 
depopulation is directly due to the State. Everywhere I went I heard 
stories of the raids made by the State soldiers. The number of people 
they shot, or otherwise tortured to death, must have been enormous. 
Perhaps as many more of those who escaped the rifle died from starva- 
tion and exposure. More than one of my carriers could tell of how 
their villages had been raided, and of their own narrow escapes. 
They are not a warlike people, and I could hear of no single attempt 
at resistance. They are the kind of people the State soldiers are most 
successful with. They would rather any day run away than fight. 
And in fact, they have nothing to fight with except a few bows and 
arrows. I have been trying to reckon the probable number of people 
I met with. I should say that five thousand is, if anything, beyond 
the mark. A few years ago the population of the district I passed 
through must have been four times that number. On my return 
march I was desirous of visiting Mbelo, the place where Lieutenant 
Massard had been stationed, and in which he committed his unspeak- 
able outrages. On making inquiries, however, I was told that there 
were no people there now, and that the roads were all 'dead.' On 
reaching one of the roads that led there, it was evident enough that it 
had not been used for a long time. Later on, I was able to confirm 
the statement that what had once been a district with numerous large 
towns, was now completely empty. . . . 

"With the exception of a few people living near the one State 
post now existing on this side of the Lake, who supply the State with 



THE CONGO AFTER THE COMMISSION 95 

kwanga and large mats, all the people I saw are taxed with rubber. 
The rubber tax is an intolerable burden — how intolerable I should 
have found it almost impossible to believe had I not seen it. It is 
difficult to describe it calmly. What I found was simply this : 
The ' tax ' demands from twenty to twenty- five days' labour every month. 
There never was a ' forty hours per month labour law ' in the Crown 
Domain, and so long as the tax is demanded in rubber, there never 
will be — at least in the section of it I visited. If that law were 
applied, no rubber would, or could possibly, be produced, for the 
simple reason that there is no rubber left in this section 0} the Domain. 

" It was some time before I made the discovery that in the Domaine 
de la Couronne west of Lake Leopold there is no rubber. On my 
way through I was continually meeting numbers of men going out 
on the hunt for rubber, and heard with amazement the distance they 
had to walk. It seemed so impossible that I was somewhat sceptical 
of the truth of what I was told. But I heard the same story so often, 
and in so many different places, that I was at last obliged to accept 
it. On my return I followed up this track, and found that it was all 
true. And I found also that the rubber is collected from the Domaine 
Prive in forests from ten to forty miles beyond the boundary of the 
Crown Domain. 

"Once the vines had been found the working of the rubber is a 
small part of the labour. I have made a careful calculation of the 
distance the people I met have to walk, and I find that the average 
cannot be less than 300 miles there and back. But walking to the forest 
and back does not occupy from twenty to twenty-five days per month. 
They will cover the 300 miles in ten or twelve days. The rest of the 
time is used in hunting for the vines, and in tapping them when found. 
I met a party returning with their rubber who had been six nights in 
the forest. This was the lowest number. Most 0} them have to 
spend ten, some as many as fifteen, nights in the forest. Two days after 
I left the Domain on my way back I saw some men returning empty- 
handed. They had been hunting for over eight days and had found 
nothing. What the poor wretches would do I cannot imagine. If 
they failed to produce the usual amount of rubber on the appointed 
day they would be put in 'bloc' (imprisoned). 

"The workmen of the chef de poste at Mbongo described a concoc- 
tion which is sometimes administered to capitas when their tale of 
rubber is short. The white man chops up green tobacco leaves and 
soaks them in water. Red peppers are added, and a dose of the liquid 



96 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

is administered to defaulting capitas. This wily official manages to 
get thirteen monthly 'taxes' in the year. At one village I bought a 
contrivance by which the natives reckon when the tax falls due. 
Pieces of wood are strung on a piece of cane. One piece is moved up 
every day. On counting them I found there were only twenty-eight. 
I asked why, and was told that originally there were thirty pieces, but 
the white man had so often sent on the twenty-eighth day to say the 
time was up, that at last they took off two. 

"Individual acts of atrocity here have for the most part ceased. 
The State agents seem to have come to the conclusion that it is a waste 
of cartridges to shoot down these people. But the whole system 

IS A VAST ATROCITY INVOLVING THE PEOPLE IN A STATE OF UNIMAGIN- 
ABLE misery. One man said to me, ' Slaves are happy compared with 
us. Slaves are protected by their masters, they are fed and clothed. 
As for us — the capitas do with us what they like. Our wives have to 
plant the cassava gardens and fish in the stream to feed us while 
we spend our days working for Bula Matadi. No, we are not even 
slaves.' And he is right. It is not slavery as slavery was generally 
understood: it is not even the uncivilized African's idea of slavery. 
There never was a slavery more absolute in its despotism or more 
fiendish in its tyranny" 

It will be seen that, so far as the people are concerned, the problem 
is largely solved, the bitterness of death is past. No European inter- 
vention can save them. In many places they have been utterly 
destroyed. But they were the wards of Europe, and surely 
Europe, if she is not utterly lost to shame, will have something 
to say to their fate! 



X 

SOME CATHOLIC TESTIMONY AS TO THE CONGO 

IT MUST be admitted that the Roman Catholic Church, as an 
organized body, has not raised her voice as she should in the 
matter of the Congo. Never was there such a field for a Las 
Casas. It was the proudest boast of that church that in the dark 
days of man's history she was the one power which stood with her 
spiritual terrors between the oppressor and the oppressed. This 
noble tradition has been sadly forgotten in the Congo, where the 
missions have themselves, as I understand, done most excellent 
work, but where the power of the Church has never been invoked 
against the constant barbarities of the State. In extenuation, it 
may be stated that the chief Catholic establishments are down 
the river and far from the rubber zones. It is important, 
however, to collect under a separate heading such testimony as 
exists, for an unworthy attempt has been made to represent the 
matter as a contest between rival creeds, whereas it is really a 
contest between humanity and civilization on one side and cruel 
greed upon the other. 

The organization of the Catholic Church is more disciplined, 
and admits of less individualism than that of those religious 
bodies which supplied the valiant champions of right in the 
Congo. The simple priests were doubtless as horrified as 
others, within the limit of their knowledge, but the means of 
expression were denied them. M. Coifs, himself a Catholic, said 
in the Belgian Chamber: "Our missionaries have less liberty than 
foreign missionaries. They are expected to keep silence. . . . 
There is a gag. This gag is placed in the mouth of Belgian 
missionaries." 

Signor Santini, the Catholic and Royalist Deputy for Rome, has 
been one of the leaders in the anti-Congo movement, and has done 
excellent work in Italy. From his own sources of information he 
confirms and amplifies all that the English and Americans have 

97 



9 8 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

asserted. Speaking in the Italian Parliament on February 4th, 1907, 
Signor Santini said: 

"I am proud to have been the first to bring the question of the 
Congo before this House. If at the present day we are spared the 
shame of seeing again officers of our Army, valorous and perfectly 
stainless, serving under and at the orders of an association of 
sweaters, slave-holders and barbarians, it is legitimate for me to 
declare that I have, if only modestly, at least efficaciously, 
co-operated in this result." 

There is no conflict of creeds in such an utterance as that. 

Catholic papers have occasionally spoken out bravely upon the 
subject. 

Le Patriote, of Brussels (Royalist and Catholic), in its issue of 
February 28th, 1907, has an indignant editorial: 

" The rebellion in the A.B.I.R. territory extends. The Govern- 
ment itself forces the rubber, and delivers it on the Antwerp quay 
to the brokers of the A.B.I.R. . . . Nothing is altered on 
the Congo. The same abominable measures are adopted; the 
same outrages take place. . . . The Government is adopting 
the same measures as in the Mongalla, flooding the A.B.I.R. 
territory with soldiers to utterly smash the people, whom it thinks 
will then work, and the rubber output be increased. . . . The 
memory of these deeds will remain graven in the memory of men, 
and in the memory of Divine vengeance. Sooner or later the execu- 
tioners will have to render an account to God and to history." 

There is one order of the Catholic Church which has always 
had a most noble record in its treatment of native races. These are 
the Jesuits. No one who has read the " History of Paraguay," 
or studied the records of the Missions to the Red Indians 
of the eighteenth century, can forget the picture of unselfish 
devotion which they exhibit. Father Vermeersch, a worthy 
successor of such predecessors, has published a book, "La 
Question Congolaise," in which he finds nothing incompatible 
between his position as a Catholic and his exposure of the 
abuses of the Congo. 

In all points the position of Father Vermeersch and of the English 
Reformers appears to be identical. 



CATHOLIC TESTIMONY AS TO THE CONGO 99 

On the rightful possession of the land by the natives he writes 
in terms which might be a paragraph from Mr. Morel : 

"On the Congo the land cannot be supposedly vacant. Pre- 
sumption is in favour of occupation, of a full occupation. By this 
is meant that it is not sufficient to recognize to the natives rights 
of tenure over the land they actually cultivate, or certain rights of 
usage — wood-cutting, hunting, fishing — on the remainder of 
the territory; but these rights of usage, which are much more import- 
ant than with us, appear to imply a full animus domini, and to 
signify a complete appropriation, which is carried out amongst us 
in different fashion. It is not, in effect, indispensable in natural 
law that I should exhaust the utility of an article or of land in order 
to be able to claim it as my own; it suffices that I should make use 
of it in a positive manner, but of my own will, personally, and that 
I should have the will to forbid any stranger to use it without my 
consent. Hence effective occupation is joined to intention, and 
all the constituent elements to a valid title of property exist. Let 
us suppose, moreover, that some great Belgian landowner wishes to 
convert portions of his property into sporting land — that land, 
nevertheless, remains in his entire possession. Amongst the Congo 
natives, no doubt, occupation is usually collective; but such 
occupation is as worthy of respect as no matter what individual 
appropriation." 

He continues: 

"To whom does the rubber belong which grows upon the land 
occupied by the Congo natives? To the natives, and to no one 
else, without their consent and just compensation." 

Again: 

"To sum up, we recognize it with much regret, the State's appro- 
priation of so-called vacant land on the Congo confronts us with an 

IMMENSE EXPROPRIATION. " 

He makes a bold attack upon King Leopold's own preserve: 

"Humanity, whose cause we plead, Christian rights, whose prin- 
ciples we endeavour to inculcate, compel us to touch briefly upon 
a curious and mysterious creation which is peculiar to the Congo 
State — the Dojnaine de la Couronne" 



ioo THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

"What are the revenues of this mysterious civil personality? 
Estimates, more or less conjectural in nature, elaborated by M. 
Cattier appear to establish the profits from the exploitation of rubber 
alone, at eight to nine millions of francs per annum. M. le Comte 
de Smet de Naeyer reduces this figure to four or five millions. Short 
of positive data one can only deal in conjectures. But we regret still 
more that an impenetrable veil hides from sight all that takes place 
in the territory of this Domaine. It is eight or ten times the 

SIZE OF BELGIUM, AND THROUGHOUT THIS VAST EXTENT OF TERRI- 
TORY THERE IS NEITHER MISSIONARY NOR MAGISTRATE." 

Only one missionary at that date had entered this dark land, and 
his exclamation was: "The Bulgarian atrocities are child's play 
to what has taken place here." 

Father Vermeersch then proceeds to deal with the Congo balance- 
sheets. His criticism is most destructive. He shows at consider- 
able length, and with a fine grasp of his subject, that there is really 
no connection at all between the so-called estimate and the actual 
budget. In the course of the State's development there is an excess 
running to millions of pounds which has never been accounted for. 
In this Father Vermeersch is in agreement with the equally elaborate 
calculations of Professor Cattier, of Brussels. 

He puts the economical case in a nutshell thus: 

"X , District Commissioner, commits every day dozens of 

offences against individual liberty. What can be done? These 
violations of the law are necessitated by a great enterprise which 
must have workmen. In such cases the intervention of the magis- 
trate would be a ruinous imprudence, calculated to bring trouble 
into the region." 

"But the law?" 

"Oh, law in the Congo is not applicable!" 

"But if you offered a decent remuneration, would you not get 
free labour?" 

"That is precisely what the State will not listen to. It maintains 
that the enterprise must be carried out for nothing!" 

And disposes once again of the "forty hours a month" fiction: 

"It is IMPOSSIBLE FOR THE STATE TO OBTAIN THE AMOUNT OF 
RUBBER IT SELLS ANNUALLY, BY LABOUR LIMITED TO FORTY HOURS 



CATHOLIC TESTIMONY AS TO THE CONGO 101 

A month, especially when it is borne in mind that a number of these 
hours are absorbed in other corvees. Of two things one, therefore. 
Either the surplus is furnished freely; and if so, how can coercion 
be logically argued? Or this supplementary labour is forced; and 
if so, the law of forty hours is shown to be merely a fraud." 

He shows the root causes of the evil: 

" So long as an inflexible will fixes in advance the quantity of rubber 
to be obtained; so long as instructions are given in this form: 
1 Increase by five tons your rubber output per month' (instance given 
by Father Cus and van Hencxthoven in their report), we cannot 
await with confidence a serious improvement, which is the desire 
of all. . . ." 

' 'The Governor- General dismisses and appoints magistrates 
at his will, suspends the execution of penalties; even sends back, 
if need be, gentlemen of the gown to Europe. Who does not realize 
the grave inconvenience of this dependence? That is not all. No 
proceedings can be attempted against a European without the 
authority of the Governor- General." 

And, finally, his reasons for writing his book: 

"The contemplation of an immeasurable misery has caused us 
to publish this book. The gravity of the evil, its roots causes, had 
long escaped us. When we knew them we could not retain within 
ourselves the compassion with which we were imbued, and we 
resolved to tell the citizens of a generous country, appealing to their 
religion, to their patriotism, to their hearts." 

Surely after such evidence from such a source there must be some 
heart-searchings among those higher members of the Catholic 
hierarchy, including both Cardinals and Bishops, who have done 
what they could to cripple the efforts of the reformers. Misinformed 
through their own want of care in searching for the truth, they have 
stood before the whole world as the defenders of that which will be 
described by the historian as the greatest crime in history. 



XI 

THE EVIDENCE UP TO DATE 

I SHALL now append some extracts from the reports of several 
British Vice-Consuls and Consuls sent in during the last 
few years. These bear less upon outrages, which have 
admittedly greatly decreased, but mainly upon the general condition 
of the people, which is one of deplorable poverty and misery — a 
slavery without that care which the owner was bound to exercise 
over the health and strength of the slave. I shall give without 
comment some extracts from the reports of Vice- Consul Mitchell, 
which date from July, 1906: 

"Most of the primitive bridges over the numerous creeks and 
marshes had rotted away, and we had some difficulty in crossing 
on fallen trees or a few thin sticks. This was the case all the way 
to Banalya, and I may here state that this condition of the roads, 
even of the most frequented, is universal in this province. The 
reason is that the local authorities have neither men, means, nor time 
at their disposal for the making of decent roads. The parsimony 
oj the State in this respect is the more remarkable in the l Domaine 
Prive,' whence large amounts are derived, and where next to nothing is 
expended. 

"So long as the policy of the State Government is to extract all 
it can from the country, while using only local materials, and spending 
the least possible amount on development and improvements, no 
increase in the general well-being can be expected. . . . 

"■• . . . At all the posts on the north (right) bank, between 
Yambuya and Basoko, I found the European agents absent in the 
interior, and at Basoko itself only the doctor was left in charge, all 
the rest of the staff being away ' en expedition? that is, on punitive 
expeditions. 

"I stayed at Basoko for five days, partly at Dr. Grossule's request, 
and partly in the endeavour to learn something of the operations 

102 



THE EVIDENCE UP TO DATE 103 

going on in the interior. Three canoe-loads of prisoners arrived, 
all heavily loaded with chains. But all I could learn was that they 
were sent in by Lieutenant Baron von Otter, who had been sent to 
the promontory lying between the mouth of the Aruwimi and the 
Congo to enforce the Labour Ordinances. 

"In all the Basenji villages through which I have passed on my 
two journeys, the natives assert that it takes them three weeks every 
month to find and make their tale oj rubber, besides taking it once 
every three months to the State post, from jour to six days distant. 

"This country is taxed to the utmost, not one penny of the pro- 
ceeds of which is spent on the roads. This condition of the most 
important highway in the province is nothing less than disgraceful, 
and yet this is the road of which the authorities are really proud. 

"Thus, with the exception of a trivial payment for some things, 
the Government carries on the work of the country at no expense 
beyond the wages and the European rations of the white agents, 
and these are excessively few in number. It is true there are 
the Force Publique and some travailleurs. These are recruited 
by conscription and receive pay and rations, but it is at the 
lowest possible rate. . . 

"Coming to the Basenji, the following particulars of a village in 
the forest will show their liabilities. This village has fourteen adult 
males ; its neighbour, which works with it, the chiefs being brothers, 
has nine. Each man has to take to the State post a large basket, 
holding about twenty-five pounds of rubber, once every month and 
a half. To get this rubber, though they find it only one day's journey 
distant, takes them thirty days. It then takes them five days to carry 
it to the State post, and three days to return. Thus they spend 
thirty-eight days out of forty-five in the compulsory service of the 
State. For the basket of rubber they receive 1 kilog. of salt, nominally 
worth 1 fr. The chief receives 1 kilog. of salt for the whole. If the 
rubber is deficient in quality or quantity, the man is liable to 
be whipped and imprisoned without trial. As it is supposed to be 
the equivalent of the forty hours' monthly labour, I fail to see by 
what right the man can be held responsible for the quality, even if 
he wilfully adulterates it with other substances. 

"The people are all disheartened, and are unanimously of the 
opinion that they were better off under the Arabs, whose rule was 
intermittent, and from whom they could run away. . . . 

"I must say that during more than nineteen years' experience 



104 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

in Northern and Central Africa, I have never seen such a miserably 
poor lot as the Basenji in this State. . . . 

"It is perfectly clear that the Inspectors, however conscientious, 
hard-working, and faithful they may be, cannot remedy the excessive 
impositions on the natives under the present system. . . . 

"The grant of land and seed to the natives is of absolutely no use 
to them till they are lejt time to use them. . . . 

"To say that the State cannot afford the expense is absurd. The 
Congo is taxed unmercifully, and I do not suppose any country has 
less money spent upon it. The taxpayer gets literally nothing in 
return for the life of practical slavery he has to spend in the support 
of the Government. 

"If trade and navigation were really free, and guarded by proper 
police, German trade through Ujiji, which already exists to some 
extent, might be greatly developed, as well as that with the British 
colonies and Zanzibar. 

"The operations of the Dutch traders, who up to a few months 
ago had quite a considerable fleet of steamers on the Upper Congo 
and its affluents, and of the French at Brazzaville, and of the Portu- 
guese, would also benefit greatly. 

"All these have practically disappeared from the Upper Congo. 

"Here, as elsewhere, the natives appeared to me to be so heavily 
taxed as to be depressed and to regard themselves as practically 
enslaved by the 'Bula Matadi.' The incessant call for rubber, food 
and labour, leaves them no respite nor peace of mind." 

The following are extracts from Vice-Consul Armstrong's report, 
dated October, 1906: 

"As the result of my journey through this portion of the country, 
I am forced to the conclusion that the condition of the people in the 
A.B.I.R. territory is deplorable, and although those living in the 
vicinity of the mission stations are, comparatively speaking, safe 
from ill-treatment by the rubber agents and their armed sentries, 
those in other parts are subjected to the gravest abuses. 

"There is no free labour, the natives being forced to work at a 
totally inadequate wage. In visiting the various rubber-working 
towns, one would expect to see some signs of European commodities 
that had been given in exchange for the millions of pounds' worth of 
rubber that has been extracted from them, but the native residents 
possess actually nothing at all. 



THE EVIDENCE UP TO DATE 105 

" Their conditions of living are deplorable, and the filth and squalor 
of their villages is only too apparent. The people live in a state 
0} uncertainty as to the advent 0} police officers and soldiers, who 
invariably chase them from their abodes and destroy their huts, and 
for this reason it is impossible for them to better their condition of 
living by the construction of suitable dwellings. 

"No change of system to be looked for. 

"No change in the existing system can be looked for until a more 
reasonable method of taxation is adopted. The present system 
permits the rubber agents to extract the largest possible quantity of 
rubber from the native at the lowest possible wage, and allows the 
employment of armed sentries to enforce this deplorable system." 

In these despatches Vice-Consul Armstrong gives evidence of a 
plot against the sturdy Mr. Stannard upon the part of the infamous 
A.B.I.R. Company. Their idea, no doubt, was to break down his 
health and embitter his existence by successive law-suits. In May 
of 1906, the natives of a village called Lokongi rose up against his 
murderous sentries and burned their houses. A charge was at once 
made against Mr. Stannard of having instigated them to this very 
natural and commendable action. Natives had been suborned or 
terrified into giving evidence against him, and it might have gone 
ill with him had it not been for the prompt action of the Consul. 
He set off for the village, accompanied by Mr. Stannard and the 
A.B.I.R. director. The natives were assembled and asked to speak 
the truth. They said, without hesitation, that Mr. Stannard had 
had nothing to do with the matter, but that the representatives of 
the company had threatened to torture them unless they said that 
he had. The A.B.I.R. director held his peace before these revela- 
tions and had no explanation to offer. Consul Armstrong then 
pointed out to the Public Prosecutor in good, straight terms, which his 
official superiors might well imitate, that the matter had gone far 
enough, that English patience was almost exhausted, and that Mr. 
Stannard should be baited no longer. The case was dropped. 

I shall pass straight on now to the most recent reports received 
from the Congo, to show that there is no difference at all in the 
general condition, so far as it is reported by the impartial men at 
the spot, save that the actual killings and maimings have decreased. 
The great oppression and misery of the people seem to grow rather 
than abate. The following extracts are from Consul Thesiger's 



io6 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

report of his experiences in the Kasai Company's district. This 
company, it may be worth remarking, has paid the enormous dividend 
of seven hundred per cent. The first paragraph may be commended 
to the consideration of those British or American travellers who, on 
the strength of a flying visit, venture to contradict the experience of 
those white men who spend their lives in the country: 

"Although from the evidence of State officials it has been proved 
that individual cases of abuses are not infrequent even at these posts, 
the chance traveller will certainly see nothing of them, and when he 
judges of the condition of the country by what he actually sees at 
these stations, his opinions may be perfectly honest, but they are 
absolutely worthless. It is as though some well-meaning person, 
who had heard that a certain fashionable firm was making a fortune 
by sweated labour, were to venture to deny the facts because a cursory 
visit to the West End establishment showed that the salesmen behind 
the counter were well-dressed and well-nourished, ignoring altogether 
the festering misery of the sweaters' dens in which every article 
sold over that counter was made up." 

After showing that the Kasai Company, in their haste for wealth 
(and, perhaps, in their foresight, as knowing that their occupancy 
may be brought to an end) , are cutting down the rubber vines instead 
of tapping them (illegal, of course, but what does that matter where 
Belgian Concessionnaires are in question), goes on to show the 
pressure on the people : 

"The work is compulsory; it is also incessant. The vines have 
to be sought out in the forest, cut down and disentangled from the 
high-growing branches, divided into lengths, and carried home. 
This operation has to be continually repeated, as no man can carry 
a larger quantity of the heavy vine lengths than will keep him occupied 
for two or three days. Accidents are frequent, especially among the 
Bakuba, who are large-built men, hunters and agriculturists by 
nature, and unaccustomed to tree climbing. Large as the Bakuba 
villages still are, the population is diminishing. Here there is no 
sleeping sickness to account for the decrease, there have been no 
epidemics of late years; exposure, overwork, and shortage of proper 
food alone are responsible for it. The Bakuba district was formerly 
one of the richest food-producing regions in the country, maize and 
millet being the staple crops, together with manioc and other plants. 



THE EVIDENCE UP TO DATE 107 

So much so was this the case that the mission at Luebo used to send 
there to buy maize. Under the present regime the villagers are not 
allowed to waste in cultivating, hunting or fishing — time which 
should be occupied in making rubber. 

"In a few villages they were cultivating by stealth small patches 
in the forest, where they were supposed to be out cutting the rubber 
vines; but everywhere else it was the same story: the capitas would 
not allow them time to clear new ground for cultivation, or permit 
them to hunt or fish; if they tried to do so their nets and implements 
were destroyed. The majority of the capitas, when questioned, 
acknowledged quite frankly that they had orders to that effect. 
These villages are living on the produce of the old manioc fields, 
and are buying food from the Bakette. Under these circumstances 
it is not surprising that the population is diminishing. As one 
woman expressed it: 'The men go out hungry into the forest; when 
they come back they get sick and die.' The village of Ibunge, where 
formerly the largest market of the district was held weekly, now 
consists of a collection of hovels, eight of which are habitable, and 
the market is all but dead." 

So the capitas are at their old work the same as ever. The Congo 
idea of reforming them has always been to change their name — 
so by calling a burglar a policeman a great reformation is effected. 

Read, however, the following passage, which shows that if the 
capita is the same, so also is the agent. The white race is certainly 
superior, for when the savage sentry's heart relented the white man 
was able to scourge him back to his inhuman task: 

"Once I had got outside the zone surrounding Ibanj, where the 
villages are not taxed in rubber, I found the capitas, with very few 
exceptions, were all armed with cap-guns. I met them frequently, 
escorting the rubber caravans to the company post, or going from 
village to village collecting the rubber from the centres under their 
charge and distributing the trade goods for the coming month. I 
noticed that they invariably carried their guns, and, in fact, I have 
seldom seen a capita stir outside his own home without his gun. 
These are the men who are appointed by the Kasia Company agents 
to enforce the rubber tax. Chosen always from a different race, 
they have no sympathy with the natives placed under them, and 
having the authority of the agent behind them they can do as they 
please, so long as they insure the rubber being brought at the proper 



108 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

times and in sufficient quantities. In the villages they are absolute 
masters, and the villagers have to supply them gratis with a house, 
food, palm wine, and a woman. They exercise freely the right 
of beating or imprisoning the villagers for any imaginary offences 
or for neglecting their work in any way, and even go as far as imposing 
fines in cowries on their own account, and confiscating for their own 
use the cowries paid over by the plaintiff or defendant's family in the 
case of trial by poison, which, in spite of statements to the contrary 
recently made in the Belgian Chamber, are of frequent occurrence 
in this country. The native cannot complain or obtain satisfaction in 
any way, as the capita acts in the name of the company, and the 
company's agent is always threatening them in the name of 'Bula- 
Matadi.' If the authorities wish to act in the matter, they might 
profitably make inquiry into the doings of the capitas at Bungueh, 
Bolong, and into those of the Zappo Zap capita, who appears to 
exercise the chief control over the villages near Ibunge, though he 
does not live in the latter town. These appear to me to be among 
the worst where most are bad. The capitas, however, are scarcely 
to be blamed, as, if they do not extort enough rubber, they are liable 
in their turn to suffer at the hands of the agent. Witness a case at 
Sangela, when it was reported that the capita had some time back 
been chicotted in the village itself by the agent for not bringing in 
rubber sufficient. Endless cases could be quoted, but these will 
probably be sufficient to show the methods pursued under the auspices 
of the Kasai Company. Yet in a letter dated the eighth of March, 
1908, we find Dr. Dreypondt writing reproachfully: 

" 'You know we have no armed sentries, but only tradesmen 
going, with goods of every kind, and unarmed, through the villages 
for the purchasing of rubber. We use only one trading principle 
— Voffre et la demanded " 

The laws at all points are completely ignored, "and many of 
the agents not only punish the natives in these ways themselves, 
but allow their capitas the same privileges. It is only by these 
means that the natives can be kept at their incessant work." 

Suicide is not natural with African, as it is with some Oriental 
races. But it has come in with the other blessings of King Leopold. 

"At Ibanj, for instance, only a day's march from a State post, 
two Bakette from the village of Baka-Tomba were not long ago 



THE EVIDENCE UP TO DATE 109 

imprisoned for shortage of rubber, and were daily taken out under 
the charge of an armed native to work in the fields with ropes round 
their necks. One of them, tired of captivity, pretended one day 
that he saw some animal in a tree and obtained leave from the guard 
to try and get it. He climbed the tree, tied the rope which was 
round his neck to a branch and hung himself. He was cut down, 
and, after a considerable time, was resuscitated, thanks to the medical 
experience of one of the missionaries. I was able to question the 
man myself at his village, and the story was also confirmed by the 
Capita." 

The American flag presents no refuge for the persecuted. 

"About the same time this same man had the effrontery to take 
some seven armed natives on to the station of the American mission, 
during the absence of the missionaries, and demand from the native 
who was left in charge that he should hand over to him a native, not 
in his own employ, who had run away in consequence of some dis- 
pute, and who he declared was hiding at the mission. The overseer, 
a Sierra Leone man, very rightly declared his inability to do so, and 
said he must await the return of the missionaries. An altercation 
followed, and the agent struck him twice in the face. The man 
being a British subject, I told him if he chose to prosecute I would 
support him, or else I would insist on the agent paying him an indem- 
nity in cloth. As a prosecution would have entailed his going to 
Lusambo, a fifteen days' journey, with every prospect of being kept 
there some four to six months with all the witnesses while awaiting 
the hearing of his case, he chose the latter method. The cloth 
was paid." 

He continues: 

"These cases can all be substantiated, and are typical of a certain 
class of agent which is unfortunately, although not general, far too 
common. Numerous complaints were also made to me in different 
villages against an agent, not only that he beat and imprisoned the 
natives for shortage of rubber, but also that he obliged them to supply 
him with alcohol distilled from palm wine, and was in the habit of 
taking any of the village women that struck his fancy at the weekly 
market held on or near his own post. The Company, I believe, 
promised the American mission last May that this man should be 
removed, but when I passed through he was still there. Placed in 



no THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

the power of men like these the natives dare not complain to the 
authorities, and are entirely helpless." 

Nominally the Company makes no punitive expeditions. As 
a matter of fact they have engaged Lukenga, a warlike chief of the 
neighbourhood, to do it for them. Nominally the capitas are not 
supplied with guns. As a matter of fact they all carry guns, which 
are declared to be their personal property. At every corner one 
meets hypocrisy and evasion of law. 

Speaking of the Bakuba, the Consul says: 

"x\lthough not wanting in physical courage or strength, they are 
rather an agricultural than a warlike race, and their villages were 
formerly noted for their well-built and artistically decorated houses 
and their well-cultivated fields. 

"It is, however, their misfortune to live in a forest country rich 
in rubber vines, and they have consequently come under the curse 
of the concessionary Company in the shape of the Kasai Trust. 
As a result their native industries are dying out, their houses and 
fields are neglected, and the population is not only decreasing, but 
also sinking to the dead-level of the less advanced and less capable 
races. 

"There is no doubt that the Bakuba are the most oppressed race 
to-day in the Kasai. Harassed by their own king in the interest 
of the Rubber Company, driven by the agents and their capitas, 
disarmed and deprived even of the most ordinary rights, they will, 
if nothing is done to help them, sink to the level of the vicious and 
degraded Bakette. 

"One asks oneself in vain what benefits these people have gained 
from the boasted civilization of the Free State. One looks in vain 
for any attempt to benefit them or to recompense them in any way 
for the enormous wealth which they are helping to pour into the 
Treasury of the State. Their native industries are being destroyed, 
their freedom has been taken from them, and their numbers are 
decreasing. 

"The only efforts made to civilize them have been made by the 
missionaries, who are hampered at every turn." 

Consul Thesiger winds up with the remark that as the Company 
has behaved illegally at every turn it has forfeited all claims to con- 
sideration and that there is no hope for the country so long as it 



THE EVIDENCE UP TO DATE m 

exists. Straight words — but how much more forcibly do they 
apply to that Congo State of which these particular companies are 
merely an outcome. Until it is swept from the map there is no hope 
for the country. You cannot avoid the rank products while the 
putridity remains. 

The next document bearing upon the question is from the Rev. 
H. M. Whiteside, from the notorious A.B.I.R. district. I give it in 
full, that the reader may judge for himself how far the direct Belgian 
rule has altered the situation. 

"I should like to bring to your notice a few facts regarding the 
condition of this (A.B.I.R.) district. 

" After this extensive journey made through the district recently, 
and particularly the Bompona neighbourhood, I found the people 
working rubber in all the towns visited with the exception of those 
taxed in provisions. 

" It is difficult to know which 'tax,' rubber or provisions, is hardest. 
The rubber workers implored us to free them from rubber, and at 
one village upon our departure they followed us a considerable 
distance, and it was difficult to get away from them. The amount 
of rubber collected is small compared with what was formerly 
demanded, but I have no doubt it requires one-third of the time 
of the people to collect it. Many of the people of the villages behind 
Bompona were away collecting rubber. We met many of the Ionji 
people in the forest, either actually engaged in their work or hunting 
for a district where the vines might have escaped other collectors. 
We also met other villagers in the bush in quest of rubber. Almost 
all the village migrates to the forest — men, many women and 
children — when rubber is required. 

" In the light of these facts, how worthless are the assertions that 
rubber 'tax' has been stopped in the A.B.I.R. territory. 

"With regard to the provision tax, it was difficult to get any data, 
but it is easy for one to see the oppressed condition of the people 
when one comes into contact with them. Between the provision 
tax, porterage and paddlers, I believe that the people of Bompona 
have got very little time to themselves. There is one thing that 
one cannot help seeing, viz., the mean, miserable appearance of the 
people residing around the State post of Bompona. The houses 
or huts are in keeping with the owners of them. A very small bale 
of cloth could take the place of all I saw worn. In all the district 



ii2 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

I never saw a single brass rod, nor any domestic animals except 

a few miserable chickens. The extreme poverty of the people is 

most remarkable. There is no doubt as to their desire to possess 

European goods, but they have nothing with which to buy except 

rubber and ivory, which is claimed by the State. 

"It may be thought that I am painting their condition in too dark 

colours, but I feel it requires strong words to give a fair idea of the 

utter hopelessness and abject appearance of the people of Bompona, 

of the people of the villages behind the State post some twenty-five 

miles away, and in a lesser degree of the rubber workers opposite 

Bompona. 

UT1 "H. M. Whiteside. 

Ikau, 

"June 15th, 1909." 

Finally, there is the following report from the extreme other end 
of the country. It is dated June 1st, 1909. The name of the sender, 
though not published, was sent to the Foreign Office. He is an 
American citizen: 

"I am sorry to say there is need for agitation for the reform of 
the Belgian Kwango territory along this frontier. Robbing and 
murder are still being carried on under the rule of the Belgian official 
from Popocabacca. Last month he came with an armed force to 
the district of Mpangala Nlele, two days west of here, to decorate 
with the Congo medal a new chief in the stead of our old friend 
Nlekani. Nlekani left a number of sons, but none of them were 
willing to take the responsibility of the Medal Chieftainship. They, 
therefore, placed their villages under the authority of a powerful 
chief living to the north of them. 

"The official of the Congo Government had been insisting for a 
year that a younger son of the old chief should consent to be the 
Medal Chief. This young man, named Kingeleza, was a fine, bright 
fellow, but thinking that, as a younger son, he would lack the necessary 
authority over the people and would get into trouble with the Govern- 
ment if he could not satisfy its requirements, he declined. The 
Belgian official was, however, so insistent that Kingeleza had finally 
agreed in order to avoid a clash with the Government. 

"On his way to make the ' investiture,' the Belgian official robbed 
some villages and killed two men. Kingeleza' s people, who had 
gathered together to witness the investiture, hearing of the treatment 



THE EVIDENCE UP TO DATE 113 

meted out to the other villages, took fright and fled from their own 
villages, which the Belgians, upon arriving, found deserted. Where- 
upon the soldiers proceeded to ferret the fugitives out of the woods, 
where they were hiding. Twenty were seized, among whom was 
one of Kingeleza's sisters, a young and attractive looking girl. Four 
of the villagers were subsequently released, and the balance matched 
off with other spoils to Popocabacca. The evangelist attached to the 
American mission, who was absent in the Lower Congo, had his 
house broken open and a tent and school materials carried off. 

"As for Kingeleza, some of the Belgian soldiers met him in the 
path and shot him. They did not know that he was Kingeleza, and 
Kingeleza is still being sought for by the Belgian official. 

"This same 'Chief of Brigands,' as I prefer to call him, has just 
been on another raid for which he even entered Portuguese territory 
within a few hours of where I am writing, wantonly destroying all 
that he could not carry off. The people had, happily, all escaped 
before he arrived. The Portuguese are reporting this outrage to 
the Governor- General at Loanda." 



XII 

THE POLITICAL SITUATION 

I HAVE not in this statement touched upon the financial side 
of the Congo State. A huge scandal lies there — so huge 
that the limits of it have not yet been defined. I will not go 
into that morass. If Belgians wish to be hoodwinked in the matter, 
and to have their good name compromised in finance as well as in 
morality, it is they who in the end will suffer. One may merely 
indicate the main points, that during the independent life of the 
Congo State all accounts have been kept secret, that no budgets of 
the last year but only estimates of the coming one have ever been 
published, that the State has made huge gains, in spite of which it 
has borrowed money, and that the great sums resulting have been 
laid out in speculations in China and elsewhere, that sums amounting 
in the aggregate to at least ^7,000,000 of money have been traced 
to the King, and that this money has been spent partly in buildings 
in Belgium, partly in land in the same country, partly in building 
on the Riviera, partly in the corruption of public men, and of the 
European and American Press (our own being not entirely untar- 
nished, I fear), and, finally, in the expenses of such a private life 
as has made King Leopold's name notorious throughout Europe. 
Of the guilty companies the poorest seem to pay fifty and the richest 
seven hundred per cent, per annum. There I will leave this unsav- 
oury side of the master. It is to humanity that I appeal, and that 
is concerned with higher things. 

Before ending my task, however, I would give a short account 
of the evolution of the political situation as it affected, first, Great 
Britain and the Congo State; secondly, Great Britain and Belgium. 
In each case Great Britain was, indeed, the spokesman of the civilized 
world. 

So far as one can trace, no strong protest was raised by the British 
Government at the time when the Congo State, took the fatal step, 
the direct cause of everything which has followed, of leaving the 

114 



THE POLITICAL SITUATION 115 

honest path, trodden up to that time by all European Colonies, and 
seizing the land of the country as their own. Only in 1896 do we 
find protests against the ill-usage of British coloured subjects, ending 
in a statement in Parliament from Mr. Chamberlain that no further 
recruiting would be allowed. For the first time we had shown our- 
selves in sharp disagreement with the policy of the Congo State. In 
April, 1897, a debate was raised on Congo affairs by Sir Charles 
Dilke without any definite result. 

Our own troubles in South Africa (troubles which called forth 
in Belgium a burst of indignation against wholly imaginary British 
outrages during the war) left us little time to fulfil our Treaty obliga- 
tions toward the natives on the Congo. In 1903 the matter forced 
itself to the front again, and a considerable debate took place in the 
House of Commons, which ended by passing a resolution with almost 
complete unanimity to the following effect: 

"That the Government of the Congo Free State, having, at its 
inception, guaranteed to the Powers that its native subjects should 
be governed with humanity, and that no trading monopoly or privilege 
should be permitted within its dominions; this House requests His 
Majesty's Government to confer with the other Powers, signatories 
of the Berlin General Act, by virtue of which the Congo Free State 
exists, in order that measures may be adopted to abate the evils 
prevalent in that State." 

In July of the same year there occurred the famous three days' 
debate in the Belgian House, which was really inaugurated by the 
British resolution. In this debate the two brave Reformers, Vander- 
velde and Lor and, though crushed by the voting power of their 
opponents, bore off all the honours of war. M. de Favereau, the 
Minister of Foreign Affairs, alternately explained that there was no 
connection at all between Belgium and the Congo State, and that 
it was a breach of Belgian patriotism to attack the latter. The 
policy of the Congo State was upheld and defended by the Belgian 
Government in a way which must forever identify them with all the 
crimes which I have recounted. No member of the Congo adminis- 
tration could ever have expressed the intimate spirit of Congo admin- 
istration so concisely as M. de Smet de Naeyer, when he said, speaking 
of the natives: "They are not entitled to anything. What is given 
them is a pure gratuity." Was there ever in the world such an 
utterance as that from a responsible statesman! In 1885 a State 



n6 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

is formed for the "moral and material improvement of the native 
races." In 1903 the native "is not entitled to anything." The two 
phrases mark the beginning and the end of King Leopold's journey. 

In 1904 the British Government showed its continued uneasiness 
and disgust at the state of affairs on the Congo by publishing the 
truly awful report of Consul Casement. This document, circulated 
officially all over the globe, must have opened the eyes of the nations, 
if any were still shut, to the true object and development of King 
Leopold's enterprise. It was hoped that this action upon the part 
of Great Britain would be the first step toward intervention, and, 
indeed, Lord Lansdowne made it clear in so many words that our 
hand was outstretched, and that if any other nation chose to grasp it, 
we would proceed together to the task of compulsory reform. It 
is not to the credit of the civilized nations that not one was ready 
to answer the appeal. If, finally, we are forced to move alone, 
they cannot say that we did not ask and desire their co-operation. 

From this date remonstrances were frequent from the British 
Government, though they inadequately represented the anger and 
impatience of those British subjects who were aware of the true state 
of affairs. The British Government refrained from going to extremes 
because it was understood that there would shortly be a Belgian 
annexation, and it was hoped that this would mark the beginning of 
better things without the necessity for our intervention. Delay 
followed delay, and nothing was done. A Liberal Government was 
as earnest upon the matter as its Unionist predecessor, but still the 
diplomatic etiquette delayed them from coming to a definite con- 
clusion. Note followed note, while a great population was sinking 
into slavery and despair. In August, 1906, Sir Edward Grey declared 
that we "could not wait forever," and yet we see that he is waiting 
still. In 1908 the long looked-for annexation came at last, and the 
Congo State exchanged the blue flag with the golden star for the 
tricolour of Belgium. Immediate and radical reforms were promised, 
but the matter ended as all previous promises have done. In 1909 
M. Renkin, the Belgian Colonial Minister, went out to inspect the 
Congo State, and had the frankness before going to say that nothing 
would be changed there. This assurance he repeated at Boma, 
with a flourish about the "genial monarch" who presided over 
their destinies. By the time this pamphlet is printed M. Renkin 
will be back, no doubt with the usual talk of minor reforms, which 
will take another year to produce, and will be utterly futile when 



THE POLITICAL SITUATION 117 

reduced to practice. But the world has seen this game too often. 
Surely it will not be made a fool of again. There is some limit to 
European patience. 

Meanwhile, in this very month of August, 1909, a full year after 
the annexation by Belgium (an annexation, be it mentioned, which 
will not be officially recognized by Great Britain until she is satisfied 
in the matter of reforms), Prince Albert, the heir to the throne, has 
returned from the Congo. He says: 

"The Congo is a marvellous country, which offers unlimited 
resources to men of enterprise. In my opinion our colony will 
be an important factor in the welfare of our country, whatever 
sacrifices we will have to make for its development. What we 
must do is to work for the moral regeneration of the natives, ameliorate 
their material situation, suppress the scourge of sleeping sickness, 
and build new railways." 

"Moral regeneration of the natives!" Moral regeneration of 
his own family and of his own country — that is what the situation 
demands. 



XIII 

SOME CONGOLESE APOLOGIES 

IT ONLY remains to examine some of the Congolese attempts 
to answer the unanswerable. It is but fair to hear the other 
side, and I will set down such points as they advance as 
clearly as I can: 

i. — That the Congo State is independent and that it is no one 
else's business what occurs within its borders. 

I have, I trust, clearly shown that by the Berlin Treaty of 1885 
the State was formed on certain conditions, and that these conditions 
as affecting both trade and the natives have not been fulfilled. There- 
fore we have the right to interfere. Apart from the Treaty this 
right might be claimed on the general grounds of humanity, as has 
been done more than once with Turkey. 

2. — That the French Congo is as bad, and that we do not inter j ere. 

The French Colonial system has usually been excellent, and there 
is, therefore, every reason to believe that this one result of evil example 
will soon be amended. There, at least, we have no Treaty obligation 
to interfere. 

3. — That the English agitation is due to jealousy 0} Belgian 
success. 

We do not look upon it as success, but the most stupendous failure 
in history. What is there to be jealous of? Is it the making of 
money ? But we could do the same at once in any tropical Colony if 
we stooped to the same methods. 

4. — That it is a plot 0} the Liverpool merchants. 

This legend had its origin in the fact that Mr. Morel, the leader 
and hero of the cause, was in business in Liverpool, and was after- 
ward elected to be a member of the Liverpool Chamber of Com- 

118 



SOME CONGOLESE APOLOGIES 119 

merce. There is, indeed, a connection between Liverpool and the 
movement, because it was while engaged in the shipping trade there 
that Mr. Morel was brought into connection with the persons and the 
facts which moved him to generous indignation, and started him upon 
the long struggle which he has so splendidly and unselfishly main- 
tained. As a matter of fact, all business men in England have very 
good reason to take action against a system which has kept their 
commerce out of a country which was declared to be open to inter- 
national trade. But of all towns Liverpool has the least reason to 
complain, as it is the centre of that shipping line which (alas! that any 
English line should do so) conveys the Congo rubber from Boma to 
Antwerp. 

5. — That it is a Protestant scheme in order to gain an advantage 
over the Catholic missions. 

In all British Colonies Catholic missions may be founded and 
developed without any hindrance. If the Congo were British to-mor- 
row, no Catholic church, or school would be disturbed. What advan- 
tage, then, would the Protestants gain by any change ? These charges 
are, as a matter of fact, borne out by Catholics as well as by Protestants. 
Father Vermeersch is as fervid as any English or American pastor. 

6. — That travellers who have passed through the country, and 
others who reside in the country, have seen no trace 0} outrages. 

Such a defence reminds one of the ancient pleasantry of the man 
who, being accused on the word of three men who were present and 
saw him do the crime, declared that the balance of evidence was in 
his favour, since he was prepared to produce ten men who were not 
present and did not see it. Of the white people who live in the coun- 
try the great majority are in the Lower Congo, which is not affected 
by the murderous rubber traffic. Their evidence is beside the ques- 
tion. When a traveller passes up the main river his advent is known 
and all is ready for him. Captain Boyd Alexander passed, as I 
understand, along the frontier, where naturally one would expect the 
best conditions, since a discontented tribe has only to cross the line. 
To show the fallacy of such reasoning I would instance the case of the 
Reverend John Howell, who for many years travelled on one of the 
mission boats upon the main river and during that time never saw an 
outrage. No doubt he had formed the opinion that his brethren had 
been exaggerating. Then one day he heard an outburst of firing, and 



i2o THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

turned his little steamer to the spot. This is what he saw: "They 
were horrified to find the native soldiers of the Government under 
the eyes of their white officers engaged in mutilating the dead bodies 
of the natives who had just been killed. Three native bodies were 
lying near the river's edge and human limbs were lying within a few 
yards from the steamer. A State soldier was seen drawing away the 
legs and other portions of a human body. Another soldier was seen 
standing by a large basket in which were the viscera of a human body. 
The missionaries were promptly ordered off the beach by the two 
officers presiding over this human shambles." And this was on the 
main river, twenty years after the European occupation. 

7. — That land has been claimed by Government in Uganda and other 
British Colonies. 

Where land has been so claimed, it has been worked by free labour 
for the benefit of the African community itself, and not for the purpose 
of sending the proceeds to Europe. This is a vital distinction. 

8. — That odious incidents occur in all Colonies. 

It is true that no Colonial system is always free from such reproach. 

But the object of the normal European system is to discourage and 
to punish such abuses, especially if they occur in high places. I have 
already given the instance of Eyre, , Governor of Jamaica, who was 
tried for his life in England because he had executed a half-caste 
at a time when there was actual revolt among the black population, 
of which he was the leader. Germany also has not hesitated to bring 
to the bar of Justice any of her officers who have lowered her prestige 
by their conduct in the tropics. But in the Congo, after twenty 
years of unexampled horror and brutality, not one single officer 
above the rank of a simple clerk has ever been condemned, or even, so 
far as I can learn, tried for conduct which, had they been British, 
would assuredly have earned them the gallows. What chance would 
Lothaire or Le Jeune have before a Middlesex jury ? There lies the 
difference between the systems. 

9. — That the British charges did not begin until the Congo became 
a flourishing State. 

Since the Congo's wealth sprang from this barbarous system, it 
is natural that they both attracted attention at the same time. Rising 
wealth meant a more rigidly enforced system. 



SOME CONGOLESE APOLOGIES 121 

10. — That the Congo State deserves great credit jor having pro- 
hibited the sale 0} alcohol to the natives. 

It is true that the sale of alcohol to natives should be forbidden in 
all parts of Africa. It is caused by the competition of trade. If a 
chief desires gin for his ivory, it is clear that the nation which supplies 
that gin will get the trade, and that which refuses will lose it. This 
by way of explanation, not of apology. But as there is no trade 
competition in the Congo, they have no reason to introduce 
alcohol, which would simply detract from the quality and value 
of their slave population. When compared with the absolute 
immorality of other Congo proceedings, it is clear that the pro- 
hibition of alcohol springs from no high motive, but is purely 
dictated by self-interest. 

11. — That the depopulation is due to sleeping sickness. 

Sleeping sickness is one of the contributory causes, but all the 
evidence in this book will tend to show that the great wastage 
of the people has occurred where the Congo' rule has pressed 
heavily upon them. 

So I bring my task to an end. 

I look at my statement of the facts and I wince at its many faults 
of omission. How many specific examples have I left out, how many 
deductions have I missed, how many fresh sides to the matter have 
I neglected. It is hurried and broken, as a man's speech may be 
hurried and broken when he is driven to it by a sense of burning 
injustice and intolerable wrong. But it is true — and I defy any man 
to read it without rising with the conviction of its truth. Consider the 
cloud of witnesses. Consider the minute and specific detail in the 
evidence. Consider the undenied system which must prima facie 
produces such results. Consider the admissions of the Belgian 
Commission. Not one shadow of doubt can remain in the most 
sceptical mind that the accusations of the Reformers have been abso- 
lutely proved. It is not a thing of the past. It is going on at this 
hour. The Belgian annexation has made no difference. The 
machinery and the men who work it are the same. There are fewer 
outrages it is true. The spirit of the unhappy people is so broken 
that it is a waste of labour to destroy them further. That their con- 
ditions have not improved is shown by the unanswerable fact that 
the export of rubber has not decreased. That export is the exact 



122 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

measure of the terrorism employed. Many of the old districts are 
worked out, but the new ones, must be exploited with greater energy 
to atone. The problem, I say, remains as ever. But surely the 
answer is at hand. Surely there is some limit to the silent complicity 
of the civilized world ? 



XIV 

SOLUTIONS 

BUT what can be done? What course should we pursue? 
Let us consider a few possible solutions and the reasons 
which bear upon them. 

There is one cardinal fact which dominates everything. It is that 
any change must be for the better. Under their old savage regime 
as Stanley found them the tribes were infinitely happier, richer and 
more advanced than they are to-day. If they should return undis- 
turbed to such an existence, the situation would, at least, be free from 
all that lowering of the ideals of the white race which is implied by a 
Belgian occupation. We may start with a good heart, therefore, since 
whatever happens must be for the better. 

Can a solution be found through Belgium? 

No, it is impossible, and that should be recognized from the outset. 
The Belgians have been given their chance. They have had nearly 
twenty- five years of undisturbed possession, and they have made it a 
hell upon earth. They cannot disassociate themselves from this 
work or pretend that it was done by a separate State. It was done by 
a Belgian King, Belgian soldiers, Belgian financiers, Belgian lawyers, 
Belgian capital, and was endorsed and defended by Belgian govern- 
ments. It is out of the question that Belgium should remain on the 
Congo. 

Nor, in face of reform, would Belgium wish to be there. She could 
not carry the burden. When the country is restored to its inhabitants 
together with their freedom, it will be in the same position as those 
German and English colonies which entail heavy annual expenditure 
from the mother country. It is a proof of the honesty of German 
colonial policy, and the fitness of Germany to be a great land-owning 
Power, that nearly all her tropical colonies, like our own, show, or 
have shown, a deficit. It is easy to show a profit if a land be exploited 
as Spain exploited Central America, or Belgium the Congo. It 
would always be more profitable to sack a business than to run it. 

123 



124 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

Now, if the forced revenue of the Congo State disappeared, it would, 
at a moderate estimate, take a minimum of a million a year for twenty 
years to bring the demoralized State back to the normal condition of a 
tropical colony. Would Belgium pay this £20,000,000 ? It is certain 
that she would not. Reform, then, is an absolute impossibility so 
long as Belgium holds the Congo. 

What, then, should be done ? 

That is for the statesmen of Europe and America to determine. 
America hastened before all the rest of the world in 1884 to recognize 
this new State, and her recognition caused the rest of the world to 
follow suit. But since then she has done nothing to control what she 
created. American citizens have suffered as much as British, and 
American commerce has met with the same impediments, in spite of 
the shrewd attempt of King Leopold to bribe American complicity by 
allowing some of her citizens to form a Concessionnaire Company 
and so to share in the unholy spoils. But America has a high moral 
sense, and when the true facts are known to her, and when she learns 
to distinguish the outcome of King Leopold's dollars from the work 
of honest publicists, she will surely be ready to move in the matter. 
It was in crushing pirates that America made her first international 
appearance upon the world's stage. May it be a precedent. 

But to bring the matter to a head the British Government should 
surely act with no further delay. The obvious course would appear 
to be that having prepared the ground by sounding each of the Great 
Powers, they should then lay before each of them the whole evidence, 
and ask that a European Congress should meet to discuss the situation. 
Such a Congress would surely result in the partition of the Congo 
lands — a partition in which Great Britain, whose responsibilities 
of empire are already too vast, might well play the most self-denying 
part. If France, having given a pledge to rule her Congo lands in the 
same excellent fashion as she does the rest of her African Empire, 
were to extend her borders to the northern bank of the river along its 
whole course until it turns to the south, then an orderly government 
might be hoped for in those regions. Germany, too, might well 
extend her East African Protectorate, so as to bring it up to the eastern 
bank of the Congo, where it runs to the south. With these large 
sections removed it would not be difficult to arrange some great 
native reservation in the centre, which should be under some inter- 
national guarantee which would be less of a fiasco than the last one. 
The Lower Congo and the Boma railway would, no doubt, present 



SOLUTIONS 125 

difficulties, but surely they are not above solution. And always 
one may repeat that any change is a change for good. 

Such a partition would form one solution. Another, less permanent 
and stable — and to that extent, as it seems to me, less good — is 
that which is advanced by Mr. Morel and others. It is an inter- 
national control of the river, some provision for which is, as I under- 
stand, already in existence. The trouble is that what belongs to all 
nations belongs to no nation, and that when the native risings and 
general turmoil come, which will surely succeed the withdrawal of 
Belgian pressure, something stronger and richer than an International 
Riverine Board will be needed to meet them. I am convinced that 
partition affords the only chance of solid, lasting amendment. 

Let us suppose, however, that the Powers refuse to convene a 
meeting, and that we are deserted even by America. Then it is our 
duty, as it has often been in the world's history, to grapple single- 
handed with that which should be a common task. We have often 
done so before, and if we are worthy of our fathers, we will do it again. 
A warning and a date must be fixed, and then we must decide our 
course of action. 

And what shall that action be? War with Belgium? On them 
must rest the responsibility for that. Our measures must be 
directed against the Congo State, which has not yet been recognized 
by us as being a possession of Belgium. If Belgium take up the 
quarrel then so be it. There are many ways in which we can bring the 
Congo State to her knees. A blockade of the Congo is one, but it has 
the objection of the international complications which might ensue. 
An easier way would be to proclaim this guilty land as an outlaw 
State. Such a proclamation means that to no British subject does the 
law of that land apply. If British traders enter it, they shall be 
stopped at the peril of those who stop them. If British subjects are 
indicted, they shall be tried in our own Consular Courts. If com- 
plications ensue, as is likely, then Boma shall be occupied. This 
would surely lead to that European Conference which we are sup- 
posing to have been denied us. 

Yet another solution. Let a large trading caravan start into the 
Congoland from Northern Rhodesia. We claim that we have a 
right to free trade by the Berlin Treaty. We will enforce our claim. 
To do so would cut at the very roots of the Congo system. If the 
caravan be opposed, then again Boma and a conference. 

Many solutions could be devised, but there is one which will come 



i26 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

of itself, and may bring about a very sudden end of the Congo Power. 
Northern Rhodesia is slowly filling up. The railhead is advancing. 
The nomad South African population, half Boers, half English, 
adventurers and lion hunters, are trekking toward the Katanga bor- 
der. They are not men who will take less than those rights of free 
entry and free commerce which are, in fact, guaranteed them. Only 
last year twelve Boer wagons appeared upon the Katanga border and 
were, contrary to all international law, warned off. They are the 
pioneers of many more. No one has the right, and no one, save 
their own Government, has the force to keep them out. Let the 
Powers of Europe hasten to regulate the situation, or some day they 
may find themselves in the presence of a, fait accompli. Better an 
orderly partition conducted from Paris or Berlin, than the intrusion 
of some Piet Joubert, with his swarthy followers, who will see no 
favour in taking that which they believe to be their right. 

But whichever solution is adopted, the conscience of Europe should 
not be content merely with the safeguarding of the future. Surely 
there should be some punishment for those who by their injustice and 
violence have dragged Christianity and civilization in the dirt. Surely, 
also, there should be compulsory compensation out of the swollen 
moneybags of the three hundred per cent, concessionnaires for the 
widows and the orphans, the maimed and the incapacitated. Justice 
cannot be satisfied with less. An International Commission, with 
punitive powers, may be exceptional, but the whole circumstances are 
exceptional, and Europe must rise to them. The fear is, however, 
that it is the wretched agents on the spot, the poor driven bonus- 
hunters who will be offered up as victims, whereas the real criminals 
will escape. The curse of blood and the scorn of every honest man 
rest upon them already. Would that they were within the reach of 
human justice also! They have been guilty of the sack of a country, 
the spoliation of a nation, the greatest crime in all history, the greater 
for having been carried out under an odious pretence of philanthropy. 
Surely somehow, somewhere, they will have their reward! 



APPENDIX 

NOTE I — THE CHICOTTE 

Chicotting is alluded to in Congo annals as a minor punishment, freely 
inflicted upon women and children. It is really a terrible torture, which 
leaves the victim flayed and fainting. There is a science in the adminis- 
tration of it. Felicien Challaye tells of a Belgian officer who became 
communicative upon the subject. "One can hardly believe," said the 
brute, "how difficult it is to administer the chicotte properly. One should 
spread out the blows so that each shall give a fresh pang. Then we have 
a law which forbids us to give more than twenty-five blows in one day, 
and to stop when the blood flows. One should, therefore, give twenty- 
four of the blows vigorously, but without risking to stop; then at the 
twenty-fifth, with a dexterous twist, one should make the blood spurt." 
("Le Congo Francais," Challaye.) The twenty-five lash law, like all 
other laws, has no relation at all to the proceedings in the Upper Congo. 

Monsieur Stanislas Lefranc, Judge on the Congo, and one of the few 
men whose humanity seems to have survived such an experience, says: 

"Every day, at six in the morning and two in the afternoon, at each 
State post can be seen, to-day, as five or even ten years ago, the savoury 
sight which I am going to try to depict, and to which new recruits are 
specially invited. 

"The chief of the post points out the victims; they leave the ranks and 
come forward, for at the least attempt at flight they would be brutally 
seized by the soldiers, struck in the face by the representative of the Free 
State and the punishment would be doubled. Trembling and terrified, 
they stretch themselves face down before the captain and his colleagues; 
two of their companions, sometimes four, seize them by their hands and 
feet and take off their waistcloth. Then, armed with a lash of hippopot- 
amus hide, similar to what we call a cow-hide, but more flexible, a black 
soldier, who is only required to be energetic and pitiless, flogs the victims. 

"Every time the executioner draws away the chicotte a reddish streak 
appears upon the skin of the wretched victims who, although strongly built, 
gasp in terrible contortions. 

" Often the blood trickles, more rarely fainting ensues. Regularly and 
without cessation the chicotte winds round the flesh of these martyrs of 
the most relentless and loathsome tyrants who have ever disgraced 

127 



128 THE CRIME OF THE CONGO 

humanity. At the first blows the unhappy victims utter terrible shrieks 
which soon die down to low groans. In addition, when the officer who 
orders the punishment is in a bad humour, he kicks those who cry or struggle. 
Some (I have witnessed the thing), by a refinement of brutality, require that, 
at the moment when they get up gasping, the slaves should graciously give 
the military salute. This formality, not required by the regulations, is 
really a part of the design of the vile institution which aims at debasing the 
black in order to be able to use him and abuse him without fear." — "Le 
Regime Congolais," Liege, Lefranc. 



1: 



»* m -o cat cw. 



